Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal
Gore Vidalwas an American writerand a public intellectual known for his patrician manner, epigrammatic wit, and polished style of writing...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth3 October 1925
CityWest Point, NY
CountryUnited States of America
prevent shut
To prevent the theft of 'Ben-Hur's sets, guards were prowling the back lot long after production had been shut down.
authority control created food human necessary power preserve purify society
To preserve the human race, it is now necessary to reorganize society. To this end, an Authority must be created with the power to control human population, to redistribute food, to purify air, water, soil, to re-pattern the cities.
dismiss entirely politics
We are pleased to dismiss politics as entirely corrupt, if not financially, intellectually.
effects himself kept magician matter public until view
Until very recently, the artist was a magician who did his magic in public view but kept himself and his effects a matter of mystery.
audiences boredom flatter guys writer
Fortunately, our audiences are used to a kind of boredom in the theatre, and if the writer is skillful, he will flatter them into thinking: 'Why, that's us up there, and aren't we - for all our little foibles - pretty nice guys and gals?'
civil himself vigilant
As for civil liberties, any one who is not vigilant may one day find himself living, if not in a police state, at least in a police city.
chaos given opinion public
At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation and prejudice.
august begin berlin cigar huge kennedy liberated visited wall
In August 1961, I visited President Kennedy at Hyannis Port. The Berlin Wall was going up, and he was about to begin a huge military buildup - reluctantly, or so he said, as he puffed on a cigar liberated by a friend from Castro's Cuba.
entirely pretend work writer
It is very difficult for a writer of my generation, if he is honest, to pretend indifference to the work of Somerset Maugham. He was always so entirely there.
politics
Friends, there is no Left in American politics.
appear believe concerned fitzgerald good hundred occurs precise putting relevant selection
For every Scott Fitzgerald concerned with the precise word and the selection of relevant incident, there are a hundred American writers, many well-regarded, who appear to believe that one word is just as good as another and that everything which occurs to them is worth putting down.
anyone except figured fringe good ignorance lost parasites particular police possibly since society sort war
What the police in their ignorance have not figured out is that they have lost all credibility since World War II. They are sort of parasites on the fringe of society and do no particular good for anyone except possibly themselves.
forces harness might various
If you are a Representative and want to be a Senator, you must be careful not to do anything which might upset the various forces you need to harness to get elected.
religious tribal
A racial or religious or tribal identity is a kind of fact.