Gore Vidal Quotes

Browse through our collection of quotes tagged with Gore Vidal.

Gore Vidal, for instance, once languidly told me that one sh

Gore Vidal, for instance, once languidly told me that one should never miss a chance either to have sex or to appear on television. My efforts to live up to this maxim have mainly resulted in my passing many unglamorous hours on off-peak cable TV. It was actually Vidal's great foe William F. Buckley who launched my part-time television career, by inviting me on to when I was still quite young, and giving me one of the American Right's less towering intellects as my foil. The response to the show made my day, and then my week. Yet almost every time I go to a TV studio, I feel faintly guilty. This is pre-eminently the 'soft' world of dream and illusion and 'perception': it has only a surrogate relationship to the 'hard' world of printed words and written-down concepts to which I've tried to dedicate my life, and that surrogate relationship, while it, too, may be 'verbal,' consists of being glib rather than fluent, fast rather than quick, sharp rather than pointed. It means reveling in the fact that I have a meretricious, want-it-both-ways side. My only excuse is to say that at least I do not pretend that this is not so.

Christopher Hitchens

Advice Conservatism Illusion Literature Guilt Gore Vidal Cable Television Cable Television In The Us Conservatism In The Us

I've always regarded it as a test of character to dislike th

I've always regarded it as a test of character to dislike the Kennedys. I don't really respect anyone who falls for Camelot.

Christopher Hitchens

Character United States Gore Vidal Kennedy Family American Politics Camelot