Gore Vidal

“You cannot deprive somebody of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, because that is a right - constitutional right.”

“What the police in their ignorance have not figured out is that they have lost all credibility since World War II. They are sort of parasites on the fringe of society and do no particular good for anyone except possibly themselves.”

“It is essential to naturalist doctrine that literature, to be good, must, finally, be the author's experience worked out literally.”

“If you are a Representative and want to be a Senator, you must be careful not to do anything which might upset the various forces you need to harness to get elected.”

“Envy is the central fact of American life.”

“Ayn Rand is a rhetorician who writes novels I have never been able to read.”

“Of all recent presidents, Clinton was expected to behave the most sensibly in economic matters. He understood how the economy works. But because he had used various dodges to stay out of the Vietnam War, he came to office ill at ease with the military.”

“I'm a fervent foe of water pollution, whether it is our own Hudson River or Philadelphia's tap water.”

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

“History is idle gossip about a happening whose truth is lost the instant it has taken place.”

“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.”

“TV news is not very instructive.”

“It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.”

“I’ve always said, ‘I have nothing to say, only to add.’ And it’s with each addition that the writing gets done. The first draft of anything is really just a track.”

“I could be a lot happier. I could be the senator from Aerospace taking bribes, and be quite happy.”

“I began life as an absolute monarchist - on condition, of course, that I be that monarch.”

“To prevent the theft of 'Ben-Hur's sets, guards were prowling the back lot long after production had been shut down.”

“By the end of World War II, we were the most powerful and least damaged of the great nations. We also had most of the money. America's hegemony lasted exactly five years.”

“What the Kinseyites and I had in common so long ago was the knowledge that homosexual and heterosexual behavior are natural to all mammals, and that what differs from individual to individual is the balance between these two complementary but not necessarily conflicted drives.”

“While campaigning, I got to know many high-school teachers, and let me say that the good ones are the unsung heroes of our society, and the bad ones are the gravediggers.”