Gore Vidal Quotes

Writer

American writer, playwright, screenwriter, and critic. Known for his sharp political satire and profound historical insight, Vidal's work spans a variety of genres including novels, plays, screenplays, and criticism.

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Famous Gore Vidal Quotes

“I'm not for real revolutions, because they always bring you the opposite of what you want. You very seldom get what you want if you have a violent revolution.”

Ifs Want Real Revolution Opposites What You Want Violent Violent Revolution

Author:Gore Vidal

“U.S. certainly are not warlike. We don't want that. We want to make money, which I always thought was one of the most admirable things about Americans.”

Want Making Money Admirable

Author:Gore Vidal

“All I want is that Americans still be able to read the alphabet in a hundred years. I am not very ambitious.”

Want Years Stills Able Hundred Ambitious Alphabet

Author:Gore Vidal

“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.”

Want Believe States America United Opinion United States Media Please Mass Guides Corporate Corporate America

Author:Gore Vidal

“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.”

Want Fiction Audience Serious Victim

Book:Screening history

Source: Screening history

“If you want to rise in politics in the United States, there is one subject you must stay away from, and that is politics.”

Ifs Want States United United States Subjects

Author:Gore Vidal

“People in my situation get to read about themselves whether they want to or not. It's generally wrong. Or oversimplified - which is sometimes useful.”

People Want Sometimes Situation

Author:Gore Vidal

“The period of Prohibition - called the noble experiment - brought on the greatest breakdown of law and order the United States has known until today. I think there is a lesson here. Do not regulate the private morals of people. Do not tell them what they can take or not take. Because if you do, they will become angry and antisocial and they will get what they want from criminals who are able to work in perfect freedom because they have paid off the police.”

Source: Matters of fact and of fiction: essays, 1973-1976

“What we are is seldom what we want to be, while what we want to be is either denied us or changes with the seasons.”

Want Seasons Denied

Book:Creation: a novel

Source: Creation: a novel

“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.”

Want Art Jobs Letters Clubs Prize Respectable Institute Turned Down Diners

Author:Gore Vidal

“I assume that the point of American democracy is you can express any point of view you want.”

Want Views Democracy Assuming Point Of View American Democracy

Author:Gore Vidal

“I wanted to be a politician and a movie star. But I was born a writer. If you're born that, you can't change it. You're going to do it whether you want to or not.~”

Ifs Want Writing Wanted Stars Born Politician Movie Star Can't Change

Author:Gore Vidal

“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.”

“Liberal comes from the Latin liberalis, which means pertaining to a free man. In politics, to be liberal is to want to extend democracy through change and reform. One can see why that word had to be erased from our political lexicon.”

Men Want Mean Political Politics Democracy Reform Latin Free Man Lexicon

Book:The Decline and Fall of the American Empire

Source: The Decline and Fall of the American Empire

“Ideally, the writer needs no audience other than the few who understand that it is immodest and greedy to want more.”

Want Inspirational Needs Audience Greedy

Book:Matters of fact and of fiction: essays, 1973-1976

Source: Matters of fact and of fiction: essays, 1973-1976

“The word 'radical' derives from the Latin word for root. Therefore, if you want to get to the root of anything you must be radical. It is no accident that the word has now been totally demonized.”

Ifs Want Democracy Roots Accidents Radical Latin

Book:Selected essays

Source: Selected essays

“That famous writer’s block is a myth as far as I’m concerned. I think bad writers must have a great difficulty writing. They don’t want to do it. They have become writers out of reasons of ambition. It must be a great strain to them to make marks on a page when they really have nothing much to say, and don’t enjoy doing it. I’m not so sure what I have to say but I certainly enjoy making sentences.”

Thinking Want Writing Reason Enjoy Ambition Pages Concerned Difficulty Mark Sentences Myth Block Strain Writer's Block Famous Writers

Author:Gore Vidal

“American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.”

Want American Writer

Author:Gore Vidal

“Private lives should be no business of the State. The State is bad enough as it is. It cannot educate or medicate or feed the people; it cannot do anything but kill the people. No State like that do we want prying into our private lives.”

People Want Should States Enough Educate Private Life

Author:Gore Vidal

“It is natural for men to want power. But to seek power actively takes a temperament baffling to both the simple and the wise. The simple cannot fathom how any man would dare presume to prevail, while the wise are amazed that any reasonable man would want the world, assuming he could get it.”

Men World Want Natural Simple Power Wise Assuming Dare Reasonable Amazed Temperament Fathom Reasonable Man

Author:Gore Vidal

“You will be favourable to Burr, and so must fail because the American reader cannot bear a surprise. He knows that this is the greatest country on earth, Washington the greatest man that ever lived, Burr the wickedest, and evidence to the contrary is not admissible. That means no inconvenient facts, no new information. If you really want the reader's attention, you must flatter him. Make his prejudices your own. Tell him things he already knows. He will love your soundness.”

About the Author

Born: October 3, 1925
Died: July 31, 2012
Known for: Writer
Quotes: 488

Books & Sources

JULIANRelated source material

Sex, Death, and MoneyRelated source material

Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of AmnesiaRelated source material

Creation: a novelRelated source material

Conversations with Gore VidalRelated source material

The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000Related source material

The Decline and Fall of the American EmpireRelated source material

A view from the diners club: essays 1987-1991Related source material

CreationRelated source material

Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship. (1. Ed.)Related source material

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