Gore Vidal, novelist, playwright, protean force of American letters has died at age 86 in Los Angeles. In a country that can poison you with fake sweetness, Mr. Vidal was a bracing, essential jolt of sour. Where will we ever get lines like these again?
"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 interests."
"Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half."
"Now you have people in Washington who have no interest in the country at all. They're interested in their companies, their corporations grabbing Caspian oil."
"The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so."
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I miss the famous Williiam F. Buckley, Jr. - Gore Vidal live debates, replete with spirited fact-based claims on both sides that is non-existent today. It might do us good to see some reruns on how it's done.
The Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer debate on Dick Cavett was memorable. If you didn't see it, you missed a great moment in TV.
Saw it, though I thought they were on more than once. As I recall, Cavett said it was his best show.
I don't think Mailer ever appeared again because he insulted Cavett and the audience. The show ranks up there as one of the best. But the show with Groucho was the best.
Yeah. Groucho was a master at clean delivery of off-color puns, glasses, cap, mustache, cigar and all. Loved his show, too.
The LA Times has posted a part of the vid with Dick Cavett, but not the part where Mailer walks out.
All thinking Americans should mourn the loss of an honest critic of hypocrisy. One can only hope that that represents a majority of Americans.
The saddest words in the English language, "Joyce Carol Oates".
Really, Kent, you simply should not include only half of a very good quote. :)
"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 interests."
No truer words spoken, especially meaningful right now.
I write this as I am reading one of Vidal's works... the classic "Burr , A Novel". He was pure genius in so many ways and his death brings to an end the concept of intelligent and informed debate. Few were his equals. Now in a world which thrives on information and soundbite, brilliance like that of Mr. Vidal's is a rarity. His body of work remains for more enlightened generations and may his memory reminds us that opinion only matters if its substantiated by facts. He will be missed.
Three more pithy utterances from the Great Intellect- ones I have employed elsewhere today.
"At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation, and prejudice" - Gore Vidal
“Persuading the people to vote against their own best interests has been the awesome genius of the American political elite from the beginning."
“We are the United States of Amnesia,” he wrote in 2004. “We learn nothing because we remember nothing.
That time period during which we neither learn or remember are getting shorter. History is repeating itself in quicker cycle. We are more often going forward without any comparative analysis with our own past experience. What we didn't learn before repeats itself more often.
"Whatever happens, happens. Whatever, in happening, causes itself to happen, happens again!"
-Douglas Adams
One of my favorite novels of all time is Creation by Gore Vidal. I really recommend it to everyone.
http://www.amazon.com/Creation-Novel-Gore-Vidal/dp/0375727051/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343850059&sr=1-1&keywords=creation
You'll be missed you curmudgeon.
All really good writers are "cat people."
My favorite Vidal quote, from the essay "Norman Mailer's Self-Advertisements" in his essential, dictionary-sized collection United States: Essays 1952-1992 (which no lefty bookshelf should be without):
"What matters finally is not the world's judgment of oneself but one's own judgment of the world."
At his best, Gore was the best. He will be missed.
Ah @!$%#.. What a loss! Too busy to take in the bad news. Yeah, there goes a big piece of humanities. rip.