The Puritans left England for America not because they couldn't be Puritans in their mother country, but because they were not allowed to force others to become Puritans; in the New World, of course, they could and did.
Gore VidalIf you are at the mercy of what they call print interviews and the mercy of people who write about you, they can always tell lies.
Gore VidalIdeally, the writer needs no audience other than the few who understand that it is immodest and greedy to want more.
Gore VidalThere is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.
Gore VidalMemory is strange. Scientifically, it is not a mechanical means of repeating something. I can think a thousand times about when I broke my leg at the age of ten, but it is never the same thing which comes to mind when I think about it. My memory of this event has never been, in reality, anything except the memory of my last memory of that event. This is why I use the image of a palimpsest - something written over something partially erased - that is what memory is for me. It's not a film you play back in exactly the same way. It's like theater, with characters who appear from time to time.
Gore Vidal