Quotes by Gore Vidal

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.

By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he’s been bought ten times over.

As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.

That is sad until one recalls how many bad books the world may yet be spared because of the busyness of writers.

Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.

Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.

Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.

The greatest pleasure when I started making money was not buying cars or yachts but finding myself able to have as many freshly typed drafts as possible.

The more money an American accumulates, the less interesting he becomes.

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.