"Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith."

Vidal, Gore on fiction   

"On 16 September 1985, when the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a debtor nation, the American Empire died."

Vidal, Gore on america
3 fans of this 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"

Vidal, Gore on language
3 fans of this quote   

"As individuals and as a nation, we now suffer from social narcissism. The beloved Echo of our ancestors, the virgin America, has been abandoned. We have fallen in love with our own image, with images of our making, which turn out to be images of ourselves."

Boorstin, Daniel J. on conceit   

"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."

Vidal, Gore on publicity   

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

Vidal, Gore on punishment   

"Laughing at someone else is an excellent way of learning how to laugh at oneself; and questioning what seem to be the absurd beliefs of another group is a good way of recognizing the potential absurdity of many of one's own cherished beliefs."

Vidal, Gore on sarcasm
4 fans of this quote   

"Never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television."

Vidal, Gore on opportunity
4 fans of this quote   

"There is hardly an American male of my generation who has not at one time or another tried to master the victory cry of the great ape as it issued from the androgynous chest of Johnny Weissmuller, to the accompaniment of thousands of arms and legs snapping during attempts to swing from tree to tree in the backyards of the Republic."

Vidal, Gore on men   

"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."

Vidal, Gore on facts   

"I find in most novels no imagination at all. They seem to think the highest form of the novel is to write about marriage, because that's the most important thing there is for middle-class people."

Vidal, Gore on fiction   

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug."

Twain, Mark on words
10 fans of this quote   

"Bring in the bottled lightning, a clean tumbler, and a corkscrew."

Dickens, Charles on alcohol and alcoholism
3 fans of this quote   

"The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on self-reliance   

"Lightning is the shorthand of a storm, and tells of chaos."

Mackay, Eric on nature   

"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph."

Kesey, Ken on writers and writing
3 fans of this quote   

"Thunder is impressive, but it is lightning that does the work."

Twain, Mark on work
4 fans of this quote   

"If you pray for rain, don't be surprised if you're struck by lightning."

Cannon, Damien on pessimism
6 fans of this quote   

"At the moment of death there will appear to you, swifter than lightning, the luminous splendor of the colorless light of emptiness, and that will surround you on all sides. Terrified, you will flee from the radiance. Try to submerge it is an obstacle blocking the path of liberation. yourself in that light, giving up all belief in a separate self, all attachment to your illusory ego. Recognize that the boundless light of this true reality is your own true self, and you shall be saved!"

Tibetan on death
5 fans of this quote   

"The angry man will defeat himself in battle as well as in life."

Maxim, Samurai on anger
18 fans of this quote   

"An angry man is again angry with himself when he returns to reason."

Syrus, Publilius on anger
17 fans of this quote