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
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.
prisoners unless war
I don't know how prisoners of war are ever heroes unless they escape.
certainly found novel
Certainly 'The Judgment of Paris' was the novel in which I found my own voice.
best
An important governorship used to be the best springboard for would-be presidents.
fervent foe hudson tap whether
I'm a fervent foe of water pollution, whether it is our own Hudson River or Philadelphia's tap water.
happened impression rather settles
In character, as it were, the writer settles for an impression of what happened rather than creating the sense of the thing happening.
capital classical death hour offense speculate
In classical times, it was a capital offense to speculate upon the hour of a king's death or upon the identity of his successor.
bodies national
In essence, Clinton's Anti-Terrorism Act would set up a national police force, over the long-dead bodies of the founders.
discovery manage obvious state
I like the way you always manage to state the obvious with a sense of real discovery.
based british colonial empire french maintained modern money paris power shifted three
After the French Revolution, the world money power shifted from Paris to London. For three generations, the British maintained an old-fashioned colonial empire, as well as a modern empire based on London's primacy in the money markets.
In the writing of novels, there is the problem of how to shape a narrative.