A good deed never goes unpunished.
Gore Vidal

A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.
Gore Vidal

All children alarm their parents, if only because you are forever expecting to encounter yourself.
Gore Vidal

All in all, I would not have missed this century for the world.
Gore Vidal

Andy Warhol is the only genius I've ever known with an I.Q. of 60.
Gore Vidal

Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.
Gore Vidal

Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.
Gore Vidal

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.
Gore Vidal

As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days.
Gore Vidal

By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he's been bought ten times over.
Gore Vidal


Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they're both just aspirin.
Gore Vidal

Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.
Gore Vidal

Fifty percent of people won't vote, and fifty percent don't read newspapers. I hope it's the same fifty percent.
Gore Vidal

Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
Gore Vidal

I never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television.
Gore Vidal

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

In America, the race goes to the loud, the solemn, the hustler. If you think you're a great writer, you must say that you are.
Gore Vidal

In writing and politicking, it's best not to think about it, just do it.
Gore Vidal

It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
Gore Vidal

It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, no matter how suspect, is superior to any imaginative exercise, no matter how true.
Gore Vidal