Who gives a damn about being remembered? That's really for amateurs. Gore Vidal More Quotes by Gore Vidal More Quotes From Gore Vidal We were to be forever at war with somebody. We were going to fight communism everywhere on earth even if it didn't threaten us. It was a holy war, just as we've made one on terrorism and Islam, equally stupid and equally irrelevant. Gore Vidal fightingstupidwar Presidents have absolutely gone against the will of Congress. Congress hasn't declared a war since December 7, 1941, and yet we've been at war ever since with somebody or other in order to justify the war machine. Now we have alienated almost the entire earth Gore Vidal presidentwarorder When you control opinion, as corporate America controls opinion in the United States by owning the media, you can make the masses believe almost anything you want, and guide them as you please. Gore Vidal mediabelieveamerica No reform ever came from the bottom, and it was always people who understood how the ruling class worked who turned out to be the reformers. Gore Vidal reformclasspeople That peculiarly American religion, President-worship. Gore Vidal presidentworship Eisenhower managed to begin the Vietnam war by not following his normal instinct of staying out of mischief. In his memoirs, he tells us why we didn't honor the Geneva accords and hold elections in Vietnam: because some 80 percent of the country would have voted for Ho Chi Minh. This is very candid. The sort of thing one might have found in Stalin'smemoirs, had he not made ghosts even of ghosts. Gore Vidal honorwarcountry You see we adults have learned how to disguise our terrible characters but a child... well, it's like a grotesque drawing of us. They should be neither seen nor heard. And no one must make another one. Gore Vidal drawingcharacterchildren I’m not a conspiracy theorist - I’m a conspiracy analyst. Gore Vidal theoristsanalystsconspiracy All in all, I would not have missed this century for the world. Gore Vidal centuryworld A good deed never goes unpunished. Gore Vidal good-deedsdeeds Drugs. If they did not exist our governors would have invented them in order to prohibit them and so make much of the population vulnerable to arrest, imprisonment, seizure of property, and so on. Gore Vidal drugpoliticalorder I suspect that our own faith in psychiatry will seem as touchingly quaint to the future as our grandparents' belief in phrenology seems now to us. Gore Vidal phrenologygrandparentbelief There's no such thing as a war against terrorism. It's idiotic. These are slogans. These are lies. It's advertising, which is the only art form we ever invented and developed. Gore Vidal warlyingart 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 Gore Vidal paperwritingthinking At a certain age, you have to live near good medical care — if, that is, you're going to continue. You always have the option of not continuing, which, I fear, is sometimes nobler. Gore Vidal medicalcareage To speak today of a famous novelist is like speaking of a famous cabinetmaker or speedboat designer. Adjective is inappropriate to noun. Gore Vidal nounsadjectivesnovelists The creation of a work of art, like an act of love, is our one small 'yes' at the center of a vast 'no.' Gore Vidal creationlove-isart I suspect that one of the reasons we create fiction is to make sex exciting. Gore Vidal writingsexfiction He's a full-fledged housewife from Kansas with all the prejudices. Gore Vidal insultkansasprejudice There is something about a bureaucrat that does not like a poem. Gore Vidal bureaucracyrebelliousdoe
