Gore Vidal – 19 Quotes

19 Quotes by Gore Vidal

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.

– Gore Vidal

It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, no matter how suspect, is superior to any imaginative exercise, no matter how true.

– Gore Vidal

Litigation takes the place of sex at middle age.

– Gore Vidal

In writing and politicking, it’s best not to think about it, just do it.

– Gore Vidal

Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.

– Gore Vidal

The greatest pleasure when I started making money was not buying cars or yachts but finding myself able to have as many freshly typed drafts as possible.

– Gore Vidal

A good deed never goes unpunished.

– Gore Vidal

The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return.

– Gore Vidal

Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.

– Gore Vidal

In America, the race goes to the loud, the solemn, the hustler. If you think you’re a great writer, you must say that you are.

– Gore Vidal

Fifty percent of people won’t vote, and fifty percent don’t read newspapers. I hope it’s the same fifty percent.

– Gore Vidal

We must declare ourselves, become known allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.

– Gore Vidal

The more money an American accumulates, the less interesting he becomes.

– Gore Vidal

Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.

– Gore Vidal

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

– Gore Vidal

That is sad until one recalls how many bad books the world may yet be spared because of the busyness of writers.

– Gore Vidal

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.

– Gore Vidal

By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he’s been bought ten times over.

– 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.

– Gore Vidal