It is astonishing to think that millions of people in my timeโnow, too, I supposeโactually thought that at a given moment in history two human beings had evolved to a higher state than that of all the gods that ever were or ever will be. This is titanism, as the Greeks would say. This is madness.
Gore VidalThe creation of a work of art, like an act of love, is our one small 'yes' at the center of a vast 'no.'
Gore VidalI don't want anything. I don't want a job. I don't want to be respectable. I don't want prizes. I turned down the National Institute of Arts and Letters when I was elected to it in 1976 on the grounds that I already belonged to the Diners Club.
Gore VidalWhen you come from a family that has been political, and I was brought up by my grandfather in the Senate, my father was in Roosevelt's Cabinet, this is not the class that produces writers or reflective people.
Gore Vidal