Gore Vidal

“The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so.”

“Like most readers, I tend to skip the acknowledgements at the beginnings of books: the 'To-My-Wife-Without-Whose-Invaluable-Assistance' kind of thing.”

“Walter Lippmann suggests that the United States behaves like a society which thinks it is complete with no more to accomplish; that, for better or worse, we are what we are, and the only dan...”

“I am told the Cheney-Bush team dislikes their junta being compared to the Nazis. If they ceased behaving like Nazis, no comparison would come to mind.”

“The behaviour of President Bush on 11 September certainly gives rise to not unnatural suspicions.”

“I think I have a normal threshold of anger, but it's true that I am, by nature, belligerent.”

“Temperamentally, I am suspicious of belonging to anything. When I ran for office, I debated seriously whether or not to run as an independent because I was not eager to be saddled with the D...”

“I'm exactly as I appear. There is no warm, lovable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water.”

“Each youth betrays considerable anxiety about the wedding night ahead.”

“A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.”

“Americans, in general, are ignorant, bigoted, and deeply unhappy with their declining incomes.”

“To invent a war means that you've become a wartime president, and you can suspend much if not all of the Bill of Rights.”

“I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults.”

“Jews, blacks and homosexuals are despised by the Christian and Communist majorities of East and West. Also, as a result of the invention of Israel, Jews can now count on the hatred of the Is...”

“Having no contemporaries left means you cannot say, 'Well, so-and-so will like this,' which you do when you're younger. You realize there is no so-and-so anymore. You are your own so-and-so....”

“I remember the Bond movies when I was a child. They were silent then.”

“In actual fact, I have always been a conservative cross, borne sadly by liberal friends.”

“One is sorry one could not have taken both branches of the road. But we were not allotted multiple selves.”

“I know a lot of the Annapolis breed.”

“Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale.”