Gore Vidal was on Bill Maher's show on HBO last week, and although he's quite frail and elderly now his mind is still sharp, and he tosses out incredible one liners, still. Maher asked him what he thinks of Sarah Palin, and Vidal said he doesn't think of her at all, and that he believes she doesn't think at all.
Vidal is one of America's best novelists and best essayists, and I used to read his various collections of essays - he's quite prolific.
Some of his quotes from the past are:
Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.
Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.
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 interes.
A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.
By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he's been bought ten times over.
Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.
Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can't read them either.
If you have a favourite quote or comment about Vidal, add it in this thread!
