Quotes by Gore Vidal

“The theater needs continual reminders that there is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all.”

“The best of our theater is standing on tiptoe, striving to see over the shoulders of father and mother. The worst is exploiting and wallowing in the self-pity of adolescence and obsessive keyhole sexuality. The way out, as the poet says, is always through.”

“Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But theyre both just aspirin.”

“Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale.”

The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.

History is idle gossip about a happening whose truth is lost the instant it has taken place.

Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-gods purpose. Any movement of a liberal nature endangers his authority and that of his delegates on earth. One God, one King, one Pope, one master in the factory, one father-leader in the family at home.

Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.

Life will be wonderful when men no longer fear dying. When the last superstitions are thrown out and we meet death with the same equanimity as life. No longer will childrens minds be twisted by evil gods whose fantastic origin is in those barbaric tribes who feared death and lightning, who feared life. Thats it: life is the villain to to those who preach reward in death, through grace and eternal bliss, or through dark revenge.

You cant really succeed with a novel anyway; theyre too big. Its like city planning. You cant plan a perfect city because theres too much going on that you cant take into account. You can, however, write a perfect sentence now and then. I have.

Constant work, constant writing and constant revision. The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a sponge. What he takes in he takes in normally the way any person takes in experience. But it is what is done with it in his mind, if he is a real writer, that makes his art.

Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head.

I sometimes think it is because they are so bad at expressing themselves verbally that writers take to pen and paper in the first place

I’ve always said, ‘I have nothing to say, only to add.’ And it’s with each addition that the writing gets done. The first draft of anything is really just a track.

To a born-again atheist like myself, it is clear that each of us has multiple selves, talents, perceptions. But to the Roman Catholic, unity is all.

Ideally, of course, a relationship is best, but then how many people are capable of deep feeling? Practically none.

Prepare yourself for some bad news: Ronald Reagan’s library just burned down. Both books were destroyed. But the real horror: He hadn’t finished coloring either one of them.

Presidents have absolutely gone against the will of Congress. Congress hasnt declared a war since December 7, 1941, and yet weve been at war ever since with somebody or other in order to justify the war machine. Now we have alienated almost the entire earth

As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.

As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days.