Sign in with your pod

Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina

Gore Vidal

152 quotes

• “As one gets older, litigation replaces sex.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Quoted in profile by Martin Amis, "Mr. Vidal: Unpatriotic Gore" (1977) in The Moronic Inferno (1987).

• “I am at heart a propagandist, a tremendous hater, a tiresome nag, complacently positive that there is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Writing Plays for Television" in New World Writing, #10 (1956)

• “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 (1925–2012) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Love Love Love," Partisan Review (Spring 1959)

• “At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation, and prejudice.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Sex and the Law," Partisan Review (Summer 1965)

• “The more money an American accumulates the less interesting he himself becomes.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: H. Hughes," The New York Review of Books (20 April 1972)

• “In any case, rather like priests who have forgotten the meaning of the prayers they chant, we shall go on for quite a long time talking of books and writing books, pretending all the while not to notice that the church is empty and the parishioners have gone elsewhere to attend other gods, perhaps in silence or with new words.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: French Letters: Theories of the New Novel" (1967)

• “That peculiarly American religion, President-worship.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: President and Mrs. U.S. Grant" (1975)

• “The period of Prohibition — called the noble experiment — brought on the greatest breakdown of law and order the United States has known until today. I think there is a lesson here. Do not regulate the private morals of people. Do not tell them what they can take or not take. Because if you do, they will become angry and antisocial and they will get what they want from criminals who are able to work in perfect freedom because they have paid off the police.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The State of the Union" (1975)

• “The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country — and we haven't seen them since.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The State of the Union" (1975)

• “Big oil, big steel, big agriculture avoid the open marketplace. Big corporations fix prices among themselves and thus drive out of business the small entrepreneur. Also, in their conglomerate form, the huge corporations have begun to challenge the very legitimacy of the state.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The State of the Union" (1978)

• “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 (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There is only one party in the United States, the Property party… and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently… and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Quoted in "Vidal: 'I'm at the Top of a Very Tiny Heap,'" profile by Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times (12 March 1981), Late City Final Edition, Section C, Page 17, Column 1.

• “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 (1925–2012) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Quoted in The Observer (7 February 1982)

• “Never pass up a chance to have sex or appear on television.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Quoted by Bob Chieger, Was It Good For You, Too? (1983).

• “I say, they don't have to conspire, because they all think alike. The president of General Motors and the president of Chase Manhattan Bank really are not going to disagree much on anything, nor would the editor of the New York Times disagree with them. They all tend to think quite alike, otherwise they would not be in those jobs.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Precocious talents mature slowly if at all.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: F. Scott Fitzgerald's Case" (1980)

• “It is reasonable to assume that, by and large, what is not read now will not be read, ever. It is also reasonable to assume that practically nothing that is read now will be read later. Finally, it is not too farfetched to imagine a future in which novels are not read at all.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Thomas Love Peacock: The Novel of Ideas" (1980)

• “In any case, write what you know will always be excellent advice to those who ought not to write at all.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1980 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Thomas Love Peacock: The Novel of Ideas" (1980)

• “Television is a great leveler. You always end up sounding like the people who ask the questions.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Sex Is Politics" (1979)

• “Religions are manipulated in order to serve those who govern society and not the other way around.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Sex Is Politics" (1979)

• “Actually, there is no such thing as a homosexual person, any more than there is such a thing as a heterosexual person. The words are adjectives describing sexual acts, not people. The sexual acts are entirely normal; if they were not, no one would perform them.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Sex Is Politics" (1979)

• “The reason no one has yet been able to come up with a good word to describe the homosexualist (sometimes known as gay, fag, queer, etc.) is because he does not exist. The human race is divided into male and female. Many human beings enjoy sexual relations with their own sex, many don't; many respond to both. This plurality is the fact of our nature and not worth fretting about.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Sex Is Politics" (1979).

• “My father had a deep and lifelong contempt for politicians in general ("They tell lies," he used to say with wonder, "even when they don't have to").”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: On Flying" (1985)

• “The last best hope on earth, two trillion dollars in debt, is spinning out of control, and all we can do is stare at a flickering cathode-ray tube as Ollie "answers" questions on TV while the press, resolutely irrelevant as ever, asks politicians if they have committed adultery. From V-J Day 1945 to this has been, my fellow countrymen, a perfect nightmare.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Ollie" (1987) [Ollie = Oliver North]

• “In a nation that has developed to a high art advertising, the creator who refuses to advertise himself is immediately suspected of having no product worth selling.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: William Dean Howells" (1983)

• “I suspect that one of the reasons we create fiction is to make sex exciting.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Oscar Wilde: On the Skids Again" (1987)

• “Class is the most difficult subject for American writers to deal with as it is the most difficult for the English to avoid.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Dawn Powell: The American Writer" (1987)

• “I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the human race. I see no good in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam — good people, yes, but any religion based on a single... well, frenzied and virulent god, is not as useful to the human race as, say, Confucianism, which is not a religion but an ethical and educational system that has worked pretty well for twenty-five hundred years. So you see I am ecumenical in my dislike for the Book. But like it or not, the Book is there; and because of it people die; and the world is in danger.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets. So that's the end of the constitution as a working machine.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: America First? America Last? America at Last?," Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 April 1992)

• “'Liberal' comes from the Latin liberalis, which means pertaining to a free man. In politics, to be liberal is to want to extend democracy through change and reform. One can see why the word had to be erased from our political lexicon.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: America First? America Last? America at Last?," Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 April 1992)

• “At least when the Emperor Justinian, a sky-god man, decided to outlaw sodomy, he had to come up with a good practical reason, which he did. It is well known, Justinian declared, that buggery is a principal cause of earthquakes, and so must be prohibited. But our sky-godders, always eager to hate, still quote Leviticus, as if that looney text had anything useful to say about anything except, perhaps, the inadvisability of eating shellfish in the Jerusalem area.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: America First? America Last? America at Last?," Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 April 1992).

• “A current pejorative adjective is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adjective is often applied to those “liberals” who prefer to improve the lives of others rather than exploit them. Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the highest altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meanings of words is a very small price to pay for our vast freedom not only to conform but to consume.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1994 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Growing Up With Gore Vidal," Screening History (1994), p. 24.

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

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Gods and Greens" (1989)

• “Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Gods and Greens" (1989)

• “The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western World. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity — much less dissent.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Cue the Green God, Ted" (1991).

• “To speak today of a famous novelist is like speaking of a famous cabinetmaker or speedboat designer. Adjective is inappropriate to noun.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Half the American people never read a newspaper. Half never vote for President — the same half?”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Lonely children often have imaginary playmates but I was never lonely; rather, I was solitary, and wanted no company at all other than books and movies, and my own imagination.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the higher altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meanings of words is a very small price to pay for the freedom not only to conform but to consume.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I shared, naturally, in that hatred of organized labor which has been the one political constant in my lifetime, culminating in Ronald Reagan's most popular gesture, the smashing of the air-controllers' union. No alternative view of organized labor has ever come to us through the popular media. If labor leaders were not crooks like Jimmy Hoffa, they were in the pay of Moscow.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “It is notable how little empathy is cultivated or valued in our society. I put this down to our traditional racism and obsessive sectarianism. Even so, one would think that we would be encouraged to project ourselves into the character of someone of a different race or class, if only to be able to control him. But no effort is made.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “By and large, serious fiction was the work of victims who portrayed victims for an audience of victims who, it was oddly assumed, would want to see their lives realistically portrayed.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Every four years the naive half who vote are encouraged to believe that if we can elect a really nice man or woman President everything will be all right. But it won't be. Any individual who is able to raise $25 million to be considered presidential is not going to be much use to the people at large. He will represent oil, or aerospace, or banking, or whatever moneyed entities are paying for him. Certainly he will never represent the people of the country, and they know it. Hence, the sense of despair throughout the land as incomes fall, businesses fail and there is no redress.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “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 (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Must one have a heart of stone to read The Ballad of Reading Gaol without laughing? (In life, practically no one ever gets to kill the thing he hates, much less loves.) And did not De Profundis plumb for all time the shallows of the most reported love affair of the past hundred years, rivalling even that of Wallis and David, its every nuance (O Bosie!) known to all, while trembling rosy lips yet form, over and over again, those doom-laden syllables The Cadogan Hotel? Oscar Wilde. Yet again. Why?”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “...American society, literary or lay, tends to be humorless. What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke?”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “After four centuries, Montaigne's curious genius still has that effect on his readers and, time and again, one finds in his self-portrait one's own most brilliant aperçus (the ones that somehow we forgot to write down and so forgot) restored to us in his essays—attempts—to assay—value—himself in his own time as well as, if he was on the subject, all time, if there is such a thing.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “World events are the work of individuals whose motives are often frivolous, even casual.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The late Mr. [Carl] Sandburg was a public performer of the first rank ("Ker-oh-seen!" he crooned in one of the first TV pitches for the jet-engine — ole banjo on his knee, white hair mussed by the jet-stream), a poet of the second rank (who can ever forget that feline-footed fog?) and a biographer of awesome badness.”

  Gore Vidal (1925–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

More