I don't want anything. I don't want a job. I don't want to be respectable. I don't want prizes. I turned down the National Institute of Arts and Letters when I was elected to it in 1976 on the grounds that I already belonged to the Diners Club. Gore Vidal More Quotes by Gore Vidal More Quotes From Gore Vidal Truman Capote has made lying an art. A minor art. Gore Vidal truman lying art Then die. We must all do that. But die, as they say, game. Gore Vidal dies games If the splitter of hairs has a sharp enough knife, the fact of life itself can be chopped into nothing. Gore Vidal knives hair facts Do nothing that is not natural - and ritual is natural - and all will be for the best. Gore Vidal ritual natural People have forgotten the effects of prohibition. We have become the United Statesof Amnesia. Gore Vidal prohibition forgotten people Although the notion of one god may give comfort to those in need of a daddy, it reminds the rest of us that the totalitarian society is grounded upon the concept of God the father. One paternal god, one paternal leader. Authority is absolute. Gore Vidal daddy giving father The true confessors have been aware that not only is life mostly failure, but that in one's failure or pettiness or wrongness exists the living drama of the self. Gore Vidal has-beens self drama What is there to say, finally, except that pain is bad and pleasure good, life all, death nothing. Gore Vidal good-life pleasure pain 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 deals difficult class I write in different styles because I hear different voices in my head. It would be boring to have always the same voice, point of view. Gore Vidal voice views writing 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 serious want fiction In matters of faith, inconvenient evidence is always suppressed while contradictions go unnoticed. Gore Vidal evidence contradiction matter I don't see us winning the war. We have made enemies of one billion Muslims. Gore Vidal winning war enemy For true happiness, it is not enough to be successful oneself . . . one's friends must fail. Gore Vidal true-happiness failing successful Without communism ... our state lacks a Wizard of Oz to terrify all the people all the time. So the state looks inward, at the true enemy, who turns out to be - who else? the people of the United States. Gore Vidal united-states people enemy Anybody, at any time, may equally find himself victim or executioner. Gore Vidal executioners victim may My family helped start [this country], we've been in political life ... since the 1690s, and I have a very possessive sense about this country. Gore Vidal my-family political country What matters finally is not the world's judgment of oneself but one's own judgment of the world.... Any writer who lacks this final arrogance will not survive very long in America. Gore Vidal what-matters long america A superficial education would be worse than none. But a full education would open every man's eyes to the nature of human existence. Gore Vidal eye would-be men Before the cards that one is dealt by life are the cards that fate has dealt: one's family. Gore Vidal fate cards
