Gore Vidal

To get people to do needed things is the perennial hard task of government, not to mention of religion and philosophy. ”

Americans have no idea of the extent of their government's mischief... the number of military strikes we have made unprovoked, against other countries, since 1947 is more than 250. ”

In August 1961, I visited President Kennedy at Hyannis Port. The Berlin Wall was going up, and he was about to begin a huge military buildup - reluctantly, or so he said, as he puffed on a cigar liberated by a friend from Castro's Cuba. ”

A friend was surprised to hear me say that there was not one moment of my past that I would like to relive. ”

I sometimes think it is because they are so bad at expressing themselves verbally that writers take to pen and paper in the first place. ”

Nearly everyone who goes into a campaign is not only eager for the place he hopes to fill but for what might come after. ”

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. ”

It's always best to stay out of other people's divorces. And their civil wars. ”

To prevent the theft of 'Ben-Hur's sets, guards were prowling the back lot long after production had been shut down. ”

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