United States Quotes

“In general, [. . .] novel-theorists have nothing very urgent or interesting to say about literature. Why then do they write when they have nothing to say? Because the ambitious teacher can only rise in the academic bureaucracy by writing at complicated length about writing that has already been much written about. The result of all this book-chat cannot interest anyone who knows literature while those who would like to learn something about books can only be mystified and discouraged by these commentaries.”
― Gore Vidal, United States: Essays 1952-1992

“Ronnie never stopped talking, even though he never had anything to say except what he had just read in the Reader’s Digest, which he studied the way that Jefferson did Montesquieu.”
― Gore Vidal, United States: Essays 1952-1992

“I should have thought that that was why one wrote - to make something useful for the survivors, to say: I was and now you are, and I leave you as good a map as I could make of my own traveling.”
― Gore Vidal, United States Essays 1952-1992

“What matters finally is not the world’s judgement of oneself but one’s own judgement of the world. Any writer who lacks this final arrogance will not survive very long in America”
― Gore Vidal, United States: Essays 1952-1992