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Presidency
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When Ronald Reagan's career in show business came to an end, he was hired to impersonate, first, a California governor and then an American president who would reduce taxes for his employers, the Southern and Western New Rich, much of whose money came from the defence industries. There is nothing unusual about this arrangement. All recent presidents have had their price-tags.
-Gore Vidal, Armageddon? (essay), 1987
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Publicity
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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
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Punishment
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I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults.
-Gore Vidal
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Sex
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Sex is. There is nothing more to be done about it. Sex builds no roads, writes no novels and sex certainly gives no meaning to anything in life but itself.
-Gore Vidal, In Homage to Daniel Shays: Collected Essays 1952-1972 (1974).
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I never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television.
-Gore Vidal
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There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo -- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices.
-Gore Vidal
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Space
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It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy's edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create one world. Instead of one world, we have star wars, and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet's dead.
-Gore Vidal
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Speeches (oratory)
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All the other candidates are making speeches about how much they have done for their country, which is ridiculous. I haven't done anything yet, and I think it's just common sense to send me to Washington and make me do my share.
-Gore Vidal
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Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either.
-Gore Vidal
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Style
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Style is knowing who you are, what to say, and not giving a damn.
-Gore Vidal
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Theater
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A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is an ability to articulate human relationships.
-Gore Vidal
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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
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Twentieth Century
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All in all, I would not have missed this century for the world.
-Gore Vidal
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The last best hope of 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
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Vanity
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A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.
-Gore Vidal
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Voting
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It makes no difference whom you vote for -- the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people.
-Gore Vidal
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Half of the American people never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
-Gore Vidal
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Wealth
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The more money an American accumulates, the less interesting he becomes.
-Gore Vidal
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Books by and about Gore Vidal