Quotes from Gore Vidal

I have always regarded as a stroke of good fortune that I was not born or brought up in a small American town; they may be the backbone of the nation, but they are also the backbone of ignorance, bigotry, and boredom, all in vast quantities.

Always a godfather, never a god.

You can't really succeed with a novel anyway; they're too big. It's like city planning. You can't plan a perfect city because there's too much going on that you can't take into account. You can, however, write a perfect sentence now and then. I have.

Andy Warhol is the only genius I've ever known with an IQ of 60.

To a born-again atheist like myself, it is clear that each of us has multiple selves, talents, perceptions. But to the Roman Catholic, unity is all.

The idea of a good society is something you do not need a religion and eternal punishment to buttress; you need a religion if you are terrified of death.

Americans, in general, are ignorant, bigoted, and deeply unhappy with their declining incomes.

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

I can't name three first-rate literary critics in the United States. I'm told there are a few hidden away at universities, but they don't print them in 'The New York Times.'

There's a lot to be said for being nouveau riche, and the Reagans mean to say it all.

In the writing of novels, there is the problem of how to shape a narrative.

The behaviour of President Bush on 11 September certainly gives rise to not unnatural suspicions.

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.

The creation of a work of art, like an act of love, is our one small 'yes' at the center of a vast 'no.'

After adolescence, if one's life is sufficiently interesting, the desire to tell oneself stories diminishes.

I'm a much worse guest than I am a host, and I'm not an awfully good host either. I really like being alone.

I like Italy. I was always at home there, it's a marvelous place to become invisible. Nobody bothers you and nobody is interested in you and I find that very good for work.

American laws don't work, but at least the laws of physics might work.

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.

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

Americans have no idea of the extent of their government's mischief... the number of military strikes we have made unprovoked, against other countries, since 1947 is more than 250.

I was like everyone else when Obama was elected - optimistic.

The human race is plainly nothing in eternity, but to us, in time, it is everything and ought not to die.

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.