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" Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn. "
Gore Vidal
Want
Knowing
You
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" In the writing of novels, there is the problem of how to shape a narrative. "
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" Policemen are seldom tried for their crimes, or indeed, held responsible for what they do, which disturbs the peace and causes distress among the orderly. "
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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" Because there is no cosmic point to the life that each of us perceives on this distant bit of dust at the galaxy's edge... there is all the more reason for us to maintain in proper balance what we have here. Because there is nothing else. No thing. This is it. And quite enough, all in all. "
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Enough
Life
" I don't know how prisoners of war are ever heroes unless they escape. "
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Know
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War
" In character, as it were, the writer settles for an impression of what happened rather than creating the sense of the thing happening. "
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Creating
Sense
Impression
" I can understand companionship. "
Gore Vidal
Understand
I Can
Companionship
" Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences. "
Gore Vidal
Drink
Take
Audiences
" It is true, as Sartre once wrote, referring to French Army atrocities in Algeria, that the real tragedy in our time is that any of us can be, interchangeably, victim or torturer. "
Gore Vidal
Victim
True
Tragedy
" It is essential to naturalist doctrine that literature, to be good, must, finally, be the author's experience worked out literally. "
Gore Vidal
Literature
Good
Finally
" I was like everyone else when Obama was elected - optimistic. "
Gore Vidal
Optimistic
Everyone
Obama
" Why not just eliminate the federal income tax? "
Gore Vidal
Why
Federal
Income
" I am a novelist turned temporary adventurer, and I chose to write television, movies and plays for much the same reason that Henry Morgan selected the Spanish Main for his peculiar - and not dissimilar - sphere of operations. "
Gore Vidal
Television
I Am
Movies
" I didn't mean to spend my life writing American history, which should have been taught in the schools, but I saw no alternative but to taking it on myself. I could think of a lot of cheerier things I'd rather be doing than analyzing George Washington and Aaron Burr. But it came to pass, that was my job, so I did it. "
Gore Vidal
Job
Writing
Myself
" There's a lot to be said for being nouveau riche, and the Reagans mean to say it all. "
Gore Vidal
Being
Say
Said
" 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
Think
You
America
" 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
Genius
Nothing
People
" As for my support for Obama, remember that I was brought up in Washington. It was an all-black city when I was a kid. And I've always been very pro-African-American - or whatever phrase we now use. "
Gore Vidal
Remember
Now
City
" The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country - and we haven't seen them since. "
Gore Vidal
Country
People
United States
" I am told the Cheney-Bush team dislikes their junta being compared to the Nazis. If they ceased behaving like Nazis, no comparison would come to mind. "
Gore Vidal
I Am
Come
Comparison
" Nearly everyone who goes into a campaign is not only eager for the place he hopes to fill but for what might come after. "
Gore Vidal
Place
Everyone
Campaign
" The first grown-up book that I read on my own was a nineteenth-century edition of 'Tales from Livy' that I'd found in my grandfather's library. "
Gore Vidal
My Own
Grandfather
Book
" You cannot deprive somebody of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, because that is a right - constitutional right. "
Gore Vidal
Right
You
Life
" To prevent the theft of 'Ben-Hur's sets, guards were prowling the back lot long after production had been shut down. "
Gore Vidal
Down
Long
Lot
" I never wanted to be a writer. I mean, that's the last thing I wanted. "
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Mean
Thing
Last
" That loyal retainer of the Chase Manhattan Bank, the American president. "
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Chase
Bank
American
" 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. "
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Time
Words
People
" The United States is a madhouse. "
Gore Vidal
States
United States
United
" What I like least about myself is my belligerence. "
Gore Vidal
Like
About
Least