Quote by Christopher Hitchens
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.
Summary
In this quote, the author reflects on an advice given by Gore Vidal, stating that one should always seize the opportunity to engage in both sex and appearing on television. However, the author admits that while appearing on television brings them some satisfaction, there is a underlying feeling of guilt. They express that television is a world of illusion and perception, far removed from the authenticity and depth they try to portray through their writing. Despite this conflict, the author acknowledges their dual nature of embracing the superficial allure of television while not pretending to be anything but that.
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