text:
User talk:Lola~enwikiquote

check your mail

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Lola. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Lola~enwikiquote that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:29, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 05:52, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User talk:Lola~enwikiquote


text:
Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a long-running television program produced by the BBC about a mysterious time-travelling adventurer known only as "The Doctor", a Time Lord from the planet of Gallifrey, who explores time and space with various companions in their TARDIS. It is currently the longest-running science-fiction series broadcast on television, spanning twenty-six years on its original run, and 14 actors have headlined the series as the Doctor. As a complete list of quotations from all eras of the show is too large to be contained on one page, this article has been split into subarticles, with quotations organised by which actor was portraying the Doctor at the time the episode was originally broadcast.

Quotations about the programme

 * Alphabetized by author

 * Doctor Who can help us contemplate a range of different moral and religious scenarios, allowing us to explore in a fictional setting the way we think about beliefs and ethical viewpoints which differ from our own. The breadth and depth of its mythology help us do this, whatever our view on religion. This is a show that attacks false gods and superstition, while at the same time admitting that immortal beings beyond our perception exist. While it has never pronounced directly upon the existence of God, Doctor Who's narrative is open enough to be read positively by both believers and atheists as supporting their world view.
 * Andrew Crome, “Doctor Who: Time travel through faith”, BBC, (22 November 2013).

 * Because it's the best idea ever invented in the history of the world!
 * Russell T. Davies, responding to the question, "Why do you think people love Doctor Who so much?" on BBC Wales Today (20 July 2004)

 * I would have loved to have done a Star Trek crossover. The very first year, we talked about it. Then Star Trek finally went off air. Landing the Tardis on board the Enterprise would have been magnificent. Can you imagine what their script department would have wanted, and what I would have wanted? It would have been the biggest battle.
 * Russell T Davies "David Tennant", team-tennant.com

 * Star Wars is adolescent nonsense; Close Encounters is obscurantist drivel; Star Trek can turn your brains to puree of bat guano; and the greatest science fiction series of all time is Doctor Who! And I'll take you all on, one-by-one or all in a bunch to back it up!
 * Harlan Ellison, recalling an address to science-fiction fans, in his Introduction to Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng-Chiang (1977) by Terrance Dicks, p. vii

Who traveled through space and time to combat the powers of evil.''' ... The show has been running in Britain almost fifty years, with many different actors in the role of The Doctor. ... One thing is consistent though and this is why the show is so beloved by geeks and nerds — It's all about the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism! Intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism! '''And if there is any hope for any of us in this giant explosion in which we inhabit then surely that's it: Intellect and romance triumph over brute force and cynicism! '''
 * '''In 1963 the BBC premiered a show about an alien
 * Craig Ferguson, in a comedic musical tribute to Doctor Who made in November 2010, which was not aired for legal reasons, but "leaked" to the internet, and finally aired with legal clearance on Late Late Show (6 January 2011) · Transcript of lyrics (with some minor errors), online at Forbes'' (1 December 2010)

 * I don't know what it's like to be God — obviously ...until that very first moment when you get to sit down and type the words in your script: INTERIOR. TARDIS. ... Suddenly I got a very good idea of what it must feel like. I went: "I'm writing it now this scene in the Tardis. I'm writing it!" And that was amazing, it was wonderful.
 * Neil Gaiman, on writing the script for the episode The Doctor's Wife (originally titled House of Nothing), as quoted in "Neil Gaiman reveals power of writing Doctor Who" by Tim Masters at BBC News (24 May 2010)

 * Doctor Who has never pretended to be hard science fiction ... At best Doctor Who is a fairytale, with fairytale logic about this wonderful man in this big blue box who at the beginning of every story lands somewhere where there is a problem.
 * Neil Gaiman, as quoted in "Neil Gaiman reveals power of writing Doctor Who" by Tim Masters at BBC News (24 May 2010)

 * No, look, there's a blue box. It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. It can go anywhere in time and space and sometimes even where it's meant to go. And when it turns up, there's a bloke in it called The Doctor and there will be stuff wrong and he will do his best to sort it out and he will probably succeed cos he's awesome. Now sit down, shut up, and watch Blink.
 * Neil Gaiman "If This is Sunday Than I Must be at Home" journal.neilgaiman.com, (April 7, 2011).

 * Because of the British sensibility, there's an emphasis [in Doctor Who] on nonviolence, there's an emphasis on philosophical issues. There wasn't anything like that on TV at the time – there wasn't a Star Trek on at the time.
 * Maura Grady in “How Doctor Who Survived 50 Years”, by Nicholas Slayton, The Atlantic, (November 21, 2013)

 * The appeal of Doctor Who is that you can do anything, any when, you can have him meet anyone. That's irresistible as a writer. You're given a completely blank slate, but you're given one of the best characters ever devised in fiction to have an adventure there. You present someone with those two factors, and they're going to leap at it.
 * Scott Handcock in “How Doctor Who Survived 50 Years”, by Nicholas Slayton, The Atlantic, (November 21, 2013)

 * When Russell T Davies relaunched the show in 2005, I watched it from the start. I thought it was fantastic. If there's any secret to its resurgence, it's due to the show's complete lack of cynicism. Both Davies and Steven Moffat are lifelong Doctor Who fans and the love shines through every episode.
 * Peter Jackson, in "Lord of the Whovians" in Entertainment Weekly (29 March 2013), p. 37

 * Last year Matt Smith was asked by a Kiwi journalist if they would ever film an episode in New Zealand, and he said, "Yes, and we can get Peter Jackson to direct it." The newspaper contacted me for comment and I said "Great, just name a time and place and I'll be there." I suspect Steven Moffat thinks I'm joking, but I saw him at Christmas and I assured him I'm not. They don't even have to pay me — but I have got my eye on one of those nice new gold-colored Daleks. They must have a spare one (hint, hint).
 * Peter Jackson, in "Lord of the Whovians" in Entertainment Weekly (29 March 2013), p. 37

 * In their book-length analysis of Doctor Who, John Tulloch and Manuel Alvarado characterize the political outlook of the program as consistent with the BBC's particular brand of political neutrality: skeptical, aggressive, quizzical, and amused towards all forms of political power. In Doctor Who the attitude gets further flavored by the Doctors "Romantic" hero mystique. This characteristic allows him to adopt a "liberal-populist role in criticizing 'sectionalist' forces of 'Left' and 'Right,' and in rebuking the 'official' and the powerful, whether in big business, the military, government or 'militant' unions." ... The political form that most resembles these critiques is liberal democracy, which places sovereignty in the hands of the people.
 * David Layton, referring to Doctor Who : The Unfolding Text (1984) by John Tulloch and Manuel Alvarado, in The Humanism of Doctor Who : A Critical Study in Science Fiction and Philosophy (2012), Ch. 10 : Politics

 * What would be the point of having this job if I didn't get to make up some of the maddest possible scenes I've ever had in my head since I was a kid? For him to stand there and take the mickey out of all those monsters — is just hugely exciting.
 * Steven Moffat, on The Doctor confronting his enemies in The Pandorica Opens, in an interview in Doctor Who Rewind (2011) by BBC America

 * At a later stage, Dr Who would be metamorphosed into a woman. Don't you agree that this is considerably more worthy of the BBC than Doctor Who's presently largely socially valueless, escapist schlock? This requires some considerable thought – mainly because I want to avoid a flashy Hollywood ‘Wonder Woman’ because this kind of hero(ine) has no flaws – and a character with no flaws is a bore.
 * Sydney Newman "Doctor Who Creator Sydney Newman Wanted a Female Doctor", Barry Rice, DoctorWhoWatch.com, (2015).

 * Infectious optimism, a sense of adventure, and limitless storytelling possibilities: For a low-budget kids' show, the BBC's original concept packed a lot of promise.
 * Nicholas Slayton, “How Doctor Who Survived 50 Years”, The Atlantic, (November 21, 2013)

 * Doctor Who is uplifting. As dark as the show can get, and as high as the body count can rise (which is very high), there's always a sense of joy and discovery there. The Doctor can be manipulative and brooding, but he's always been an explorer first. The show is about saving people and helping others, not getting revenge or hurting someone, and its unabashed love of seeing new things and the best in people makes it fun.
 * Nicholas Slayton, “How Doctor Who Survived 50 Years”, The Atlantic, (November 21, 2013)

 * The world would be a poorer place without Doctor Who.
 * Steven Spielberg, as quoted in "Edinburgh TV Festival 2008: don't rule out Doctor Who feature film, says Steven Moffat" by Ben Dowell in The Guardian (23 August 2008).

 * Because it's got that cross-generational appeal, which few other things have. It's not a working-class thing, it's not a middle-class thing. The competition winner from Doctor Who magazine was on set today, a 15-year-old girl. When I was a kid, 15-year-old girls didn't watch Doctor Who.
 * David Tennant, "David Tennant", team-tennant.com.

 * The series is neither fantasy nor space travel nor science fiction. The only unusual science fiction “angle” is that four characters of today are projected into real environments based on the best factual information of situations in time, in space and in any material state we can realize in practical terms. Using unusual exciting backgrounds, or ordinary backgrounds seen unusually, each story will have a strong informational core based on fact.  Our central characters because of their “ship” may find themselves on the shores of Britain when Caesar and his legionaires landed in 44 B.C.; may find themselves in their own school laboratories but reduced to the size of a pinhead; or on Mars; or Venus. etc. etc. The series, by the use of the characters in action stories, is designed to bridge the gap between our massive audience who watch sport on Saturday afternoon and those teenagers who watch Juke Box Jury.
 * Donald Wilson, C. E. Webber, Sydney Newman; “Dr. Who” General Notes on Background and Approach For an Exciting Adventure – Science Fiction Drama Series for Childrens Saturday Viewing, BBC, (16th May, 1963), p.1

 * Here in two flat sentences are the best things I can say about our field [science fiction] on American television: Dr. Who is sometimes aired. Sometimes Battlestar Galactica is not.
 * Gene Wolfe, Aussiecon Two (43rd World Science Fiction Convention) Guest of Honor speech (August 1985), as published in Gene Wolfe, Castle of Days (1992)

The Doctor
The Doctor is the main character of the television show Doctor Who. Although bearing remarkably human-like features, they are a Gallifreyan Time Lord — one of a mysterious alien race that has mastered time travel. The Doctor occasionally regenerates into a new form, allowing a new actor to step into the role. For clarity's sake, quotes from the show are listed by Doctor on the following subpages.

 * First Doctor (November 1963 - October 1966)
 * Second Doctor (October, November 1966 - June 1969)
 * Third Doctor (January 1970 - June 1974)
 * Fourth Doctor (June, December 1974 - March 1981)
 * Fifth Doctor (March 1981, January 1982 - March 1984)
 * Sixth Doctor (March 1984 - December 1986, September 1987)
 * Seventh Doctor (September 1987 - December 1989 + May 1996)
 * Eighth Doctor (May 1996 + November 2013)
 * War Doctor (May, November 2013 retro-role)
 * Ninth Doctor (March 2005 - June 2005)
 * Tenth Doctor (June, November 2005 - January 2010)
 * Eleventh Doctor (January, April 2010 - December 2013)
 * Twelfth Doctor (November + December 2013, August 2014 - December 2017)
 * Thirteenth Doctor (December 2017, October 2018 - October 2022)
 * Fourteenth Doctor (October 2022, November 2023, December 2023)
 * Fifteenth Doctor (December 2023)

Companions

 * Susan Foreman (1963-64, 1983)
 * Barbara Wright (1963-65)
 * Ian Chesterton (1963-65)
 * Vicki Pallister (1965)
 * Steven Taylor (1965-66)
 * Katarina (1965)
 * Sara Kingdom (1965)
 * Dodo Chaplet (1966)
 * Polly Wright (1966-67)
 * Ben Jackson (1966-67)
 * Jamie McCrimmon (1966-69, 1985)
 * Victoria Waterfield (1967-68)
 * Zoe Heriot (1968-69)
 * The Brigadier (1968, 1970-75, 1983, 1989)

 * Liz Shaw (1970)
 * Jo Grant (1971-73)
 * Sarah Jane Smith (1973-76, 1983, 2006, 2008, 2010)
 * Harry Sullivan (1974-75)
 * Leela (1977-78)
 * K-9 (1977-81, 1983, 2006, 2008)
 * Romana (1978-81, 1983)
 * Adric (1980-82)
 * Tegan Jovanka (1981-84)
 * Nyssa (1981-83)
 * Vislor Turlough (1983-84)
 * Kamelion (1983, 1984)
 * Peri Brown (1984-86)
 * Melanie Bush (1986-87)

 * Ace (1987-89)
 * Grace Holloway (1996)
 * Rose Tyler (2005-2006, 2008, 2010)
 * Jack Harkness (2005, 2007, 2008, 2010)
 * Mickey Smith (2005-06, 2008, 2010)
 * Donna Noble (2006, 2008, 2010, 2023)
 * Lady Christina de Souza (2009-09)
 * Martha Jones (2007, 2008, 2010)
 * Wilfred Mott (2007-08, 2009-2010)
 * Amy Pond (2010-12, 2013)
 * Rory Williams (2010-12)
 * River Song (2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013)
 * Clara Oswald (2012-2015)
 * Charlotte Limar (2014-2015, 2016)

 * Bill Potts (2017-2017)
 * Yasmin Khan (2018-2022)
 * Ryan Sinclair (2018-2021)
 * Graham O'Brien (2018-2021, 2022)
 * Dan Lewis (2022)
 * Ruby Sunday (2023-Present)

Villains

 * The Atraxi
 * The Beast of Doom
 * The Black Guardian
 * The Cybermen
 * The Daleks
 * Great Intelligence
 * Helen A
 * Krillitanes
 * The Master
 * Prisoner Zero
 * Rassilon
 * The Reapers
 * Restac/Alaya
 * The Silence

 * The Slitheen
 * Sontarans
 * The Weed
 * The Weeping Angels
 * The Krafayis

Writers

 * See also the Wikipedia List of Doctor Who writers for authors who have written episodes of Doctor Who

 * Robert Holmes (scriptwriter)
 * Douglas Adams
 * Russell T Davies
 * Neil Gaiman
 * Steven Moffat

Actors

 * See also the Wikipedia List of Doctor Who cast members for actors for whom pages could be created here.

 * Peter Capaldi
 * John Barrowman
 * Karen Gillan
 * Matt Smith
 * David Tennant
 * Christopher Eccleston
 * Arthur Darvill
 * Tom Baker
 * Alex Kingston
 * Billie Piper
 * Freema Agyeman
 * Catherine Tate
 * Jenna Coleman

Taglines

 * He's back...and it's about time. (Doctor Who: The Movie)
 * The Trip Of A Lifetime! (new series, Series 1)
 * "Something's Coming..." (The Christmas Invasion)
 * Think you've seen it all? Think again... (Series 2)
 * "When Two Worlds Collide, Anything Can Happen..." (Series 3)
 * The End Is Just The Beginning (Series 5)
 * Time Can Be Rewritten (A Christmas Carol)
 * Trust Your Doctor (Series 6, BBC America)
 * Silence Will Fall (Series 6: Part 1)
 * Time Runs Out (Let's Kill Hitler)
 * His Secrets Revealed (The Name of the Doctor)
 * Save the Day (The Day of the Doctor)
 * A change is going to come...(The Time of the Doctor)
 * Don't Blink ("Blink")
 * It's Time You Knew Him (Series 8)

title: Doctor Who


text:
The Simpsons

The Simpsons (1989–present) is an American animated sitcom broadcast by the Fox Broadcasting Company created by Matt Groening. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family.

Seasons

 * Seasons 1-20
 * Season 1
 * Season 2
 * Season 3
 * Season 4
 * Season 5
 * Season 6
 * Season 7
 * Season 8
 * Season 9
 * Season 10
 * Season 11
 * Season 12
 * Season 13
 * Season 14
 * Season 15
 * Season 16
 * Season 17
 * Season 18
 * Season 19
 * Season 20

 * Seasons 21-present
 * Season 21
 * Season 22
 * Season 23
 * Season 24
 * Season 25
 * Season 26
 * Season 27
 * Season 28
 * Season 29
 * Season 30
 * Season 31
 * Season 32
 * Season 33
 * Season 34
 * Season 35

Voice cast

 * Dan Castellaneta – Homer Simpson, Grampa Simpson, Krusty the Clown, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby, Sideshow Mel, Mr. Teeny, Itchy, Barney
 * Nancy Cartwright – Bart Simpson, Maggie Simpson, Nelson, Ralph, Todd,
 * Julie Kavner – Marge Simpson, Selma, Patty,
 * Yeardley Smith – Lisa Simpson
 * Harry Shearer - Mr. Burns, Smithers, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, Lenny, Principal Skinner, Dr. Hibbert, Otto

Recurring cast

 * Hank Azaria - Moe, Chief Wiggum, Cletus, Professor Fink, Apu, Lou, Comic Book Guy, Sea Captain, Bumblebee Man, Dr. Nick
 * Pamela Hayden - Milhouse, Rod Flanders
 * Tress MacNeille - Jimbo, Agnes,
 * Russi Taylor - Sherri and Terri
 * Jo Ann Harris - Various background Characters
 * Maggie Roswell - Helen Lovejoy

Special guest voice

 * Marcia Wallace - Edna Krappel
 * Susan Blu - Howie
 * Miriam Flynn - Miss Barr
 * Ron Taylor - Bleeding Gums Murphy
 * Sam McMurray - Gulliver Dark
 * Kelsey Grammer - Sideshow Bob
 * Penny Marshall - Ms. Botz

title: The Simpsons


text:
Gore Vidal

Eugene Luther Gore Vidal (born Eugene Louis Vidal; (3 October 1925 – 31 July 2012), was an American writer of novels, essays, screenplays, and stage plays.

1960s

 * There is something about a bureaucrat that does not like a poem.
 * Preface to Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship (1969)
 * Preface to Sex, Death, and Money (1969)

 * It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, however suspect, is superior to any imaginative exercise, no matter how true.
 * "French Letters: The Theory of the New Novel," Encounter magazine (December 1967)
 * "French Letters: Theories of the New Novel," Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship (1969)

Julian (1964)

 * A historical novel based on the life of the Roman Emperor Julian

 * One can never rely on the great keeping one's letters; and should those letters vanish, one is apt to be remembered only as the mysterious half of a dialogue to be reconstructed in the vaguest way from the surviving (and sometimes lesser!) half of the exchange.
 * Chapter 1, Libanius to Priscus, Antioch March 380

 * Books always cost more in those cities where they are least read!
 * Chapter 1, Libanius to Priscus, Antioch March 380

 * How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself.
 * Chapter 1, Libanius to Priscus, Antioch March 380

 * ...for ferocity there is nothing on Earth equal a Christian bishop hunting "heresy", as they call any opinion contrary to their own.
 * Chapter 1, Priscus to Libanius, Athens March 380

 * The folly of the clever is always more than that of the dull.
 * Chapter 1, Libanius to Priscus, Antioch April 380

 * In a good cause hypocrisy becomes a virtue.
 * Chapter 1, Priscus to Libanius, Antioch June 380

 * Constantine was never a true Galilean; he merely used Christianity to extend his dominion over the world. He was a shrewd professional soldier, badly educated and not in the least interested in philosophy, though some perverse taste in him was hugely satisfied by doctrinal disputes; the mad haggling of bishops fascinated him.
 * Chapter 2

 * Vengeance must end somewhere, and what better place to stop than at the prince?
 * Chapter 2

 * Constantinople has no past; only a noisy present and a splendid future, if the auguries are to be believed.
 * Chapter 2

 * They say to know oneself is to know all there is that is human. But of course no one can ever know himself. Nothing human is finally calculable; even to ourselves we are strange.
 * Chapter 4

 * It is one thing to use text to illustrate a point one is making, but quite another to quote merely to demonstrate the excellence of one's memory.
 * Chapter 5

 * By definition a bore is predictable. if you think you know in advance what a man is apt to say or do, you are not apt to be disagreeably surprised by him.
 * Chapter 5

 * ...because academics everywhere are forever attacking one another, and I had long since learned that one must never believe what a teacher says of another.
 * Chapter 5

 * Despite all evidence to the contrary I do not believe humans innately cruel, but they fear change of any kind.
 * Chapter 5, Libanius

 * Are we a dream in the mind of a deity, or is each of us a separate dreamer, evoking his own reality?
 * Chapter 5

 * No one can tell another man is true. Truth is all around us...Truth is where ever man has glimpsed divinity.
 * Chapter 5

 * Modern Christianity is a encyclopedia of traditional superstition.
 * Chapter 5

 * His fault was a common one. He simply did not know what he was;he saw no flaw in himself, a not unusual blindness and preferable, on the whole, to being unable to find any virtue in oneself.
 * Chapter 6

 * The rhetoric of hate is often most effective when couched in the idiom of love.
 * Chapter 6

 * We are all so simple at heart that become unfathomable to one another.
 * Chapter 7

 * The malice of a true Christian attempting to destroy an opponent is something unique in the world. No other religion ever considered it necessary to destroy others because they did not share the same beliefs. At worst, another man's belief might inspire amusement or contempt—the Egyptians and their animal gods, for instance. Yet those who worshipped the Bull did not try to murder those who worshipped the Snake, or to convert them by force from Snake to Bull. No evil ever entered the world quite so vividly or on such a vast scale as Christianity did.
 * Chapter 7, Priscus

 * Men are odd. If they cannot be first, they don't in the least mind being last.
 * Chapter 8

 * We are all in the habit of censuring the great, as if we were popular playwrights, when in fact ordinary folk are quite as devious and as willful and as desperate to survive (if not prevail) as are thee great; particularly philosophers.
 * Chapter 11

 * On the throne of the world, any delusion becomes fact.
 * Chapter 12

 * Traitors who prevail are patriots; usurpers who succeed are divine emperors.
 * Chapter 13, Helena

 * There is no terror equal that of the ignorant in a strange place.
 * Chapter 16

1970s

 * American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.
 * Two Sisters: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel (1970)

 * Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.
 * Quoted in The Sunday Times Magazine, London (16 September 1973).

 * I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults.
 * TV interview with David Frost and quoted in The Sunday Times Magazine 16 September 1973

 * Envy is the central fact of American life.
 * "Gore Vidal," interview by Gerald Clarke (1974), The Paris Review Interviews: Writers at Work, 5th series (1981)

 * First coffee, then a bowel movement. Then the Muse joins me.
 * "Gore Vidal," interview by Gerald Clarke (1974), The Paris Review Interviews: Writers at Work, 5th series (1981)

 * The hatred Americans have for their own government is pathological, if understandable. At one level it is simply thwarted greed: since our religion is making a buck, giving a part of that buck to any government is an act against nature.
 * "The State of the Union", Esquire magazine, (May 1975)

 * It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
 * Quoted by Gerard Irvine, "Antipanegyric for Tom Driberg," [memorial service for Driberg] (8 December 1976)

 * I can understand companionship. I can understand bought sex in the afternoon, but I cannot understand the love affair.
 * Quoted in profile by Martin Amis, "Mr. Vidal: Unpatriotic Gore" (1977) in The Moronic Inferno (1987)

 * As one gets older, litigation replaces sex.
 * Quoted in profile by Martin Amis, "Mr. Vidal: Unpatriotic Gore" (1977) in The Moronic Inferno (1987).

Homage to Daniel Shays : Collected Essays (1972)

 * Random House/Vintage, 1973, ISBN 0-394-71950-6

 * I am at heart a propagandist, a tremendous hater, a tiresome nag, complacently positive that there is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.
 * "Writing Plays for Television" in 'New World Writing, #10 (1956)

 * The theater needs continual reminders that there is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all.
 * "Love Love Love," Partisan Review (Spring 1959)

 * At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation, and prejudice.
 * "Sex and the Law," Partisan Review (Summer 1965)

 * The more money an American accumulates the less interesting he himself becomes.
 * "H. Hughes," The New York Review of Books (20 April 1972)

Matters of Fact and Fiction : Essays 1973–1976 (1978)

 * In any case, rather like priests who have forgotten the meaning of the prayers they chant, we shall go on for quite a long time talking of books and writing books, pretending all the while not to notice that the church is empty and the parishioners have gone elsewhere to attend other gods, perhaps in silence or with new words.
 * "French Letters: Theories of the New Novel" (1967)

 * That peculiarly American religion, President-worship.
 * "President and Mrs. U.S. Grant" (1975)

 * The period of Prohibition — called the noble experiment — brought on the greatest breakdown of law and order the United States has known until today. I think there is a lesson here. Do not regulate the private morals of people. Do not tell them what they can take or not take. Because if you do, they will become angry and antisocial and they will get what they want from criminals who are able to work in perfect freedom because they have paid off the police.
 * "The State of the Union" (1975)

 * The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country — and we haven't seen them since.
 * "The State of the Union" (1975)

 * Big oil, big steel, big agriculture avoid the open marketplace. Big corporations fix prices among themselves and thus drive out of business the small entrepreneur. Also, in their conglomerate form, the huge corporations have begun to challenge the very legitimacy of the state.
 * "The State of the Union" (1978)

 * The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return ...
 * p. 280

1980s

 * A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.
 * Quoted in "Vidal: 'I'm at the Top of a Very Tiny Heap,'" profile by Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times (12 March 1981), Late City Final Edition, Section C, Page 17, Column 1.

 * 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.
 * Quoted in The Observer (7 February 1982)

 * Never pass up a chance to have sex or appear on television.
 * Quoted by Bob Chieger, Was It Good For You, Too? (1983).

At The David Susskind Show (1980)

 * I say, they don't have to conspire, because they all think alike. The president of General Motors and the president of Chase Manhattan Bank really are not going to disagree much on anything, nor would the editor of the New York Times disagree with them. They all tend to think quite alike, otherwise they would not be in those jobs.
 * After being asked "Does someone as sophisticated as you are submit yourself to the conspiracy theory of history?"

The Second American Revolution (1983)

 * Precocious talents mature slowly if at all.
 * "F. Scott Fitzgerald's Case" (1980)

 * It is reasonable to assume that, by and large, what is not read now will not be read, ever. It is also reasonable to assume that practically nothing that is read now will be read later. Finally, it is not too farfetched to imagine a future in which novels are not read at all.
 * "Thomas Love Peacock: The Novel of Ideas" (1980)

 * In any case, write what you know will always be excellent advice to those who ought not to write at all.
 * "Thomas Love Peacock: The Novel of Ideas" (1980)

 * Television is a great leveler. You always end up sounding like the people who ask the questions.
 * "Sex Is Politics" (1979)

 * Religions are manipulated in order to serve those who govern society and not the other way around.
 * "Sex Is Politics" (1979)

 * Actually, there is no such thing as a homosexual person, any more than there is such a thing as a heterosexual person. The words are adjectives describing sexual acts, not people. The sexual acts are entirely normal; if they were not, no one would perform them.
 * "Sex Is Politics" (1979)

 * The reason no one has yet been able to come up with a good word to describe the homosexualist (sometimes known as gay, fag, queer, etc.) is because he does not exist. The human race is divided into male and female. Many human beings enjoy sexual relations with their own sex, many don't; many respond to both. This plurality is the fact of our nature and not worth fretting about.
 * "Sex Is Politics" (1979).

At Home (1988)

 * My father had a deep and lifelong contempt for politicians in general ("They tell lies," he used to say with wonder, "even when they don't have to").
 * "On Flying" (1985)

 * The last best hope on earth, two trillion dollars in debt, is spinning out of control, and all we can do is stare at a flickering cathode-ray tube as Ollie "answers" questions on TV while the press, resolutely irrelevant as ever, asks politicians if they have committed adultery. From V-J Day 1945 to this has been, my fellow countrymen, a perfect nightmare.
 * "Ollie" (1987) [Ollie = Oliver North ]

 * In a nation that has developed to a high art advertising, the creator who refuses to advertise himself is immediately suspected of having no product worth selling.
 * "William Dean Howells" (1983)

 * The average "educated" American has been made to believe that, somehow, the United States must lead the world even though hardly anyone has any information at all about those countries we are meant to lead. Worse, we have very little information about our own country and its past. That is why it is not really possible to compare a writer like Howells with any living American writer because Howells thought that it was a good thing to know as much as possible about his own country as well as other countries while our writers today, in common with the presidents and paint manufacturers, live in a present without past among signs whose meanings are uninterpretable.
 * "William Dean Howells" (1983)

 * I suspect that one of the reasons we create fiction is to make sex exciting.
 * "Oscar Wilde: On the Skids Again" (1987)

 * Class is the most difficult subject for American writers to deal with as it is the most difficult for the English to avoid.
 * "Dawn Powell: The American Writer" (1987)

 * I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the human race. I see no good in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam — good people, yes, but any religion based on a single... well, frenzied and virulent god, is not as useful to the human race as, say, Confucianism, which is not a religion but an ethical and educational system that has worked pretty well for twenty-five hundred years. So you see I am ecumenical in my dislike for the Book. But like it or not, the Book is there; and because of it people die; and the world is in danger.
 * Appendix

1990s

 * The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved — Judaism, Christianity, Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal — God is the Omnipotent Father — hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates. The sky-god is a jealous god, of course. He requires total obedience from everyone on earth, as he is in place not for just one tribe but for all creation. Those who would reject him must be converted or killed for their own good. Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god's purpose.
 * "America First? America Last? America at Last?", Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 April 1992)

 * Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets. So that's the end of the constitution as a working machine.
 * "America First? America Last? America at Last?," Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 April 1992)

 * 'Liberal' comes from the Latin liberalis, which means pertaining to a free man. In politics, to be liberal is to want to extend democracy through change and reform.  One can see why the word had to be erased from our political lexicon.
 * "America First? America Last? America at Last?," Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 April 1992)

 * At least when the Emperor Justinian, a sky-god man, decided to outlaw sodomy, he had to come up with a good practical reason, which he did. It is well known, Justinian declared, that buggery is a principal cause of earthquakes, and so must be prohibited.  But our sky-godders, always eager to hate, still quote Leviticus, as if that looney text had anything useful to say about anything except, perhaps, the inadvisability of eating shellfish in the Jerusalem area.
 * "America First? America Last? America at Last?," Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 April 1992).

 * A current pejorative adjective is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adjective is often applied to those “liberals” who prefer to improve the lives of others rather than exploit them. Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the highest altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meanings of words is a very small price to pay for our vast freedom not only to conform but to consume.
 * "Growing Up With Gore Vidal," Screening History (1994), p. 24.

A View from the Diner's Club (1991)

 * Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.
 * "Gods and Greens" (1989)

 * Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.
 * "Gods and Greens" (1989)

 * The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western World. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity — much less dissent.
 * "Cue the Green God, Ted" (1991).

Screening History (1992)

 * Harvard University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-674-79587-3

 * To speak today of a famous novelist is like speaking of a famous cabinetmaker or speedboat designer. Adjective is inappropriate to noun.
 * Ch. 1: The Prince and the Pauper, pp.2-3

 * Half the American people never read a newspaper. Half never vote for President — the same half?
 * Ch. 1: The Prince and the Pauper, p. 5
 * Sometimes quoted as: Half of the American people never read a newspaper. Half never voted for president. One hopes it is the same half.

 * Lonely children often have imaginary playmates but I was never lonely; rather, I was solitary, and wanted no company at all other than books and movies, and my own imagination.
 * Ch. 1: The Prince and the Pauper, p. 23

 * Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the higher altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meanings of words is a very small price to pay for the freedom not only to conform but to consume.
 * Ch. 1: The Prince and the Pauper, p. 24

 * I shared, naturally, in that hatred of organized labor which has been the one political constant in my lifetime, culminating in Ronald Reagan's most popular gesture, the smashing of the air-controllers' union. No alternative view of organized labor has ever come to us through the popular media. If labor leaders were not crooks like Jimmy Hoffa, they were in the pay of Moscow.
 * Ch. 2: Fire Over England, p. 34

 * It is notable how little empathy is cultivated or valued in our society. I put this down to our traditional racism and obsessive sectarianism. Even so, one would think that we would be encouraged to project ourselves into the character of someone of a different race or class, if only to be able to control him. But no effort is made.
 * Ch. 2: Fire Over England, p. 49

 * By and large, serious fiction was the work of victims who portrayed victims for an audience of victims who, it was oddly assumed, would want to see their lives realistically portrayed.
 * Ch. 3: Lincoln, p. 78

The Decline and Fall of the American Empire (1992)

 * Every four years the naive half who vote are encouraged to believe that if we can elect a really nice man or woman President everything will be all right. But it won't be. Any individual who is able to raise $25 million to be considered presidential is not going to be much use to the people at large. He will represent oil, or aerospace, or banking, or whatever moneyed entities are paying for him. Certainly he will never represent the people of the country, and they know it. Hence, the sense of despair throughout the land as incomes fall, businesses fail and there is no redress.

 * 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.

United States - Essays 1952–1992 (1992)

 * Must one have a heart of stone to read The Ballad of Reading Gaol without laughing? (In life, practically no one ever gets to kill the thing he hates, much less loves.)  And did not De Profundis plumb for all time the shallows of the most reported love affair of the past hundred years, rivalling even that of Wallis and David, its every nuance (O Bosie!) known to all, while trembling rosy lips yet form, over and over again, those doom-laden syllables The Cadogan Hotel?  Oscar Wilde.  Yet again.  Why?
 * Opening lines to "Oscar Wilde: On the Skids Again"

 * ...American society, literary or lay, tends to be humorless. What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke?
 * "Edmund Wilson: This Critic and This Gin and These Shoes"

 * We do not, of course, write literary criticism at all now. Academe has won the battle in which Wilson fought so fiercely on the other side.  Ambitious English teachers now invent systems that have nothing to do with literature or life but everything to do with those games that must be played in order for them to rise in the academic bureaucracy.  Their works are empty indeed.  But then, their works are not meant to be full.  They are to be taught, not read.  The long dialogue has broken down.  Fortunately, as Flaubert pointed out, the worst thing about the present is the future.  One day there will be no... But I have been asked not to give the game away.  Meanwhile, I shall drop a single hint: Only construct!
 * "Edmund Wilson: This Critic and This Gin and These Shoes", closing lines

 * After four centuries, Montaigne's curious genius still has that effect on his readers and, time and again, one finds in his self-portrait one's own most brilliant aperçus (the ones that somehow we forgot to write down and so forgot) restored to us in his essays—attempts—to assay—value—himself in his own time as well as, if he was on the subject, all time, if there is such a thing.
 * "Montaigne"

 * World events are the work of individuals whose motives are often frivolous, even casual.
 * "The Twelve Caesars"

 * The late Mr. [Carl] Sandburg was a public performer of the first rank ("Ker-oh-seen!" he crooned in one of the first TV pitches for the jet-engine — ole banjo on his knee, white hair mussed by the jet-stream), a poet of the second rank (who can ever forget that feline-footed fog?) and a biographer of awesome badness.
 * "First Note on Abraham Lincoln"

 * In fact, the French - who read and theorise the most - became so addicted to political experiment that in the two centuries since our own rather drab revolution they have exuberantly produced one Directory, one Consulate, two empires, three restorations of the monarchy, and five republics. That's what happens when you take writing too seriously.
 * "Lincoln and the Priests of Academe"

 * Professor Richard N. Current fusses, not irrelevantly, about the propriety of fictionalising actual political figures. I also fuss about this.  But he has fallen prey to the scholar-squirrel's delusion that there is a final Truth revealed only to the tenured few in their footnote maze; in this he is simply naïve.
 * "Lincoln and the Priests of Academe"

 * Current is also outraged by a reference to Lincoln's bowels, whose 'frequency,' he tells us, 'cannot be documented.' But, of course, they can.  'Truth-teller' Herndon tells us that Lincoln was chronically constipated and depended on a laxative called bluemass.  Since saints do not have bowels, Current finds all this sacrilegious; hence 'wrong.'
 * "Lincoln and the Priests of Academe"

 * What is going on here is a deliberate revision by Current not only of Lincoln but of himself in order to serve the saint in the 1980s as opposed to the saint at earlier times when black were still colored, having only just stopped being Negroes. In colored and Negro days the saint might have wanted them out of the country, as he did.  But in the age of Martin Luther King even the most covertly racist of school boards must agree that a saint like Abraham Lincoln could never have wanted a single black person to leave freedom's land much less bravery's home.  So all the hagiographers are redoing their plaster images and anyone who draws attention to the discrepancy between their own past crudities and their current falsities is a very bad person indeed, and not a scholar, and probably a communist as well.
 * "Lincoln and the Priests of Academe"

 * Basler finds my Lincoln the 'phoniest historical novel I have ever had the pleasure of reading.'... Also, 'more than half the book could never have happened as told.' Unfortunately, he doesn't say which half.  If I knew, we could then cut it free from the phony half and publish the result as Basler's Vidal's Lincoln.
 * "Lincoln and the Priests of Academe"

 * Nothing that Shakespeare ever invented was to equal Lincoln's invention of himself and, in the process, us.
 * "Lincoln and the Priests of Academe"

The City and the Pillar and Seven Early Stories (1995)

 * I have begun writing what I have said I'd never write, a memoir ("I am not my own subject," I used to say with icy superiority).
 * Preface

Palimpsest : A Memoir (1995)

 * Viking/Penguin, 1996, ISBN 0-14-026089-7

 * Anais Nin gave me my most original, or so I thought, creation. As I read Incest, I realized that something which I had always taken to be unique, the voice of Myra Breckinridge, was actually that of Anaïs in all the flowing megalomania of the diaries. Of course, I had not read the diaries then, but even so, if only for that one thundering voice, I am forever in her debt.
 * Ch. 7: "Today My Nerves Are Shattered. But I Am Indomitable!," pp. 107-108

 * I used to be able to summon up scenes at will, but now aging memory is so busy weeding its own garden that, promiscuously, it pulls up roses as well as crabgrass.
 * Ch. 12: The Guest of the Blue Nuns, p. 162

 * Celebrities are invariably celebrity-mad, just as liars always believe liars.
 * Ch. 18: To Do Well What Should Not Be Done at All, p. 311

2000s

 * We're supposed to procreate and society, god knows, is ferocious on the subject. Heterosexuality is considered such a great and natural good that you have to execute people and put them in prison if they don't practice this glorious act.
 * "American psyche", extract from interview with Anthony Clare on BBC Radio 4, "In the Psychiatrist's Chair"; published in The Independent (8 October 2000).

 * We should stop going around babbling about how we're the greatest democracy on earth, when we're not even a democracy. We are a sort of militarised republic. The founding fathers hated two things, one was monarchy and the other was democracy, they gave us a constitution that saw to it we will have neither. I don't know how wise they were.
 * "Gore Vidal and the Mind of the Terrorist", interview by Ramona Koval, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio National (November 2001)

 * One year after 9/11, we still don't know by whom we were struck that infamous Tuesday, or for what true purpose. But it is fairly plain to many civil-libertarians that 9/11 applied not only to much of our fragile Bill of Rights but also to our once-envied system of government which had taken a mortal blow the previous year when the Supreme Court did a little dance in 5/4 time and replaced a popularly elected president with the oil and gas Cheney/Bush junta.
 * "The Enemy Within", The Observer (27 October 2002)

 * Apparently, "conspiracy stuff" is now shorthand for unspeakable truth.
 * "The Enemy Within", The Observer (27 October 2002)

 * Post-9/11, the American media were filled with pre-emptory denunciations of unpatriotic 'conspiracy theorists', who not only are always with us but are usually easy for the media to discredit since it is an article of faith that there are no conspiracies in American life.
 * "The Enemy Within", The Observer (27 October 2002)

 * Well, the Constitution has not yet been pregnant.
 * As quoted in "Jah" (15 August 2004), Da Ali G Show

 * Yo, peep. This me name be Gore Vidal. I is spitting rhymes about early history. Why homies give props to Uzis, not books? Ain't nothing but a mystery, aight.
 * As quoted in "Jah" (15 August 2004), Da Ali G Show

 * Happily for the busy lunatics who rule over us, we are permanently the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing.
 * "The State of the Union," The Nation (13 September 2004)

 * We have ceased to be a nation under law but instead a homeland where the withered Bill of Rights, like a dead trumpet vine, clings to our pseudo-Roman columns.
 * "The State of the Union," The Nation (13 September 2004)

 * Lennon was somebody who was a born enemy of those who govern the United States. He was everything they hated. So I just say that he represented life, and is admirable; and Mr. Nixon and Mr. Bush represent death, and that is a bad thing.
 * Quoted in the documentary The U.S. vs John Lennon (2006) — video excerpt at The Huffington Post (12 September 2006)

 * Private lives should be no business of the State. The State is bad enough as it is. It cannot educate or medicate or feed the people; it cannot do anything but kill the people. No State like that do we want prying into our private lives.
 * Quoted in Gert Jonkers, "Gore Vidal, the Fantastic Man," Butt, No. 20 (7 April 2007)

 * Everybody likes a bit of gossip to some point, as long as it's gossip with some point to it. That's why I like history. History is nothing but gossip about the past, with the hope that it might be true.
 * Quoted in Gert Jonkers, "Gore Vidal, the Fantastic Man," Butt, No. 20 (7 April 2007)

 * "I'm not a conspiracy theorist - I'm a conspiracy analyst."
 * Quoted in The Guardian, by Ryszard Kapuściński, in "Vidal salon" (5 May 2007)

 * We must always remember that the police are recruited from the criminal classes.
 * As quoted by Dick Cavett, in "The Swimmers", The New York Times (3 June 2007)

 * Don't ever make the mistake with people like me thinking we are looking for heroes. There aren't any and if there were, they would be killed immediately. I'm never surprised by bad behaviour. I expect it.
 * The Times Online, (30 September 2009)

What I've Learned (2008)

 * Interview by Mike Sager, Esquire, (June 2008), p. 132

 * There was more of a flow to my output of writing in the past, certainly. Having no contemporaries left means you cannot say, "Well, so-and-so will like this," which you do when you're younger. You realize there is no so-and-so anymore. You are your own so-and-so. There is a bleak side to it.

 * You hear all this whining going on, "Where are our great writers?" The thing I might feel doleful about is: Where are the readers?

 * Everything's wrong on Wikipedia.

 * Some of my father's fellow West Pointers once asked him why I turned out so well, his secret in raising me. And he said, "I never gave him any advice, and he never asked for any." We agreed on nothing, but we never quarreled once.

 * Nonprofit status is what created the Bible Belt. The tax code brought religion back to this country.

 * Patriotism is as sickening today as it has ever been. I was watching the news before you came and there was a lot of coverage of Kosovo and the problems there. They showed footage of people burning an American flag. And the newscaster got all broken up and teary-eyed. He says, "I guess [sob] I just feel something here, folks, when I see the American flag being burned." And I said, You fucking asshole. Whatever happened to the news?

 * People in my situation get to read about themselves whether they want to or not. It's generally wrong. Or oversimplified — which is sometimes useful.

 * We're the most captive nation of slaves that ever came along. The moral timidity of the average American is quite noticeable. Everybody's afraid to be thought in any way different from everyone else.

Gore Vidal's America (2009)

 * Seven part interview by Paul Jay, The Real News, (5 July 2009)

 * You cannot get through the density of the propaganda with which the American people, through the dreaded media, have been filled and the horrible public educational system we have for the average person. It's just grotesque.
 * On American Altruism

 * Well, it's been the monopolizing of great wealth, which tends to happen in basically unjust societies and undemocratic societies. We have plenty of would-be democrats, would-be liberals, and would-be progressives. But how do you organize? The Democratic Party is a machine to get votes for its people, none of who should probably be elected to the high offices of state. That's all. The Republican Party is fundamentally crooked and might well be outlawed one of these days. Le Pen, you know, in France, who is an out-and-out fascist, the French have managed in some clever way to contain him. I mean, he's always running for president; his votes never seem to show up. I don't know how they do it, but we've got to do that with the Republican base, the religious right. We don't want them running the country. Nobody does. Certainly not the founding fathers. And I think we have to ride herd on them and make sure they do not seize the state.
 * On fascism

 * Well, you have to work out what it is. They are a little splinter. They can't summon many voters at any given time. They are a minority of a minority of a minority. They have everybody buffaloed because the great corporations like them and pay money to their candidates for sheriff and senator. And they're playing big-time politics. Yes, indeed. But the average person doesn't like them. You know, any time I want to get applause — and I lecture across America in state after state after state — when I fear things are getting a little low, I always say, “And another thing: Let us tax all the religions,” I bring down the goddamn house with that. And any politician would if he had sense enough to do it. The people don't like their tax exemption.
 * On the religious right in America

 * Well, remember, all that area from which the Gore family comes was solid Democrat and progressive under Roosevelt for several decades. So they just didn't become Republicans because they all wanted to be bankers. They became it because they didn't like black people, and they thought the Democrats were pushing integration too fast. And that's how the great split came about, to the shame of the whole country.
 * On the American South's switch from Democrat to Republican

 * You know, I've been around the ruling class all my life, and I've been quite aware of their total contempt for the people of the country.
 * On the Media

 * You think of the Republican Party as a party, like the British Conservative Party - well it isn't! I don't say that the British Conservative Party is much better, I'm only saying the Republican Party is a mindset. They love war! They love money! They're out to hang on through all the connections that they have, through their various operatives.
 * On the Republican Party

"Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia" (2013)

 * A documentary film

 * The founding fathers were not interested in democracy, in fact, in a country with 3 1/4 million people, which is about what we were at the time of the separation from England, only 700,000 people could vote — white males of property. So it's never been terribly democratic. ...and they put together a constitution which would protect property for all time. No nonsense about democracy!

 * For reasons that I leave to a higher psychiatry, Jr. wanted a war in Iraq. ...Jr. is really pretty vague, you know. He just wanted to go... "Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! We gotta stand tall, ya know? We can't cut and run, yeah, ya know what I mean." We've had bad presidents in the past, but we've never had a G-- D--d fool!

 * They already had contingency plans ready in case of terrorism, violence, whatever, which they had inherited from Clinton, who had put together some terrible legislation after Timothy McVeigh blew up the building in Oklahoma City.

 * It was ready-made for them to call an emergency and pretend it was war-time, you know, the war on terrorism is a metaphor, and terrorism is an abstract noun. It's like a "war on dandruff." There's no such thing, you know. It isn't war, it's just a slogan. But using the slogan they got through the U.S.A. Patriot Act, which removes many of our liberties. Nobody made a sound when we lost Habeas Corpus—due process of law—and suddenly Bush managed to get rid of it. Where was a voice on television, aside from mine, that spoke out against this? Where were all those noble jurists, those great lawyers, those lovers of liberty, where the hell were they? They were nowhere!

 * Now we have a totalitarian government. And the totalitarian government wants to watch everybody, total surveillance of everyone. They listen to the telephone conversations, they look at your credit cards, they look where you travel. We are totally policed. This is contrary to everything in our Constitution.

 * I complain about the United States not being Athens. I certainly say we are a very good Roman republic, and the lies are based upon the most advanced techniques of advertising, which is the only art form my country has ever created — the television commercial — and we sell soap and presidents in the same fashion. Once a country is habituated to liars, it takes generations to bring the truth back.

 * Those who seem to think that the Bush administration had something to do with 9-11... I can prove that they didn't. They are totally incompetent! 9-11 was a brilliantly executed strike on the United States. I can't imagine anybody... I can't even imagine... Can you imagine Cheney, mumbling around, orchestrating something like that?

Two things that they worship. You can't expect a democracy from a society like this.
 * Americans are farcical when it comes to force majeure and money!

 * Islam, Judaism, Christianity are the three great evils that have befallen the world.

Misattributed

 * Never have children, only grandchildren.
 * This was said by Vidal's maternal grandfather, Thomas Pryor Gore, as recalled by Vidal: "My grandfather, Senator Gore ('I never give advice') was suddenly Polonius; he also changed his usual line from 'Never have children, only grandchildren' to 'Be not fruitful, do not multiply.' " [Palimpsest, ch. 3: The Desire and the Successful Pursuit of the Whole]

Quotes about Vidal

 * Vidal gives the impression of believing that the entire heterosexual edifice — registry offices, Romeo and Juliet, the disposable diaper — is just a sorry story of self-hypnosis and mass hysteria: a hoax, a racket, or sheer propaganda.
 * Martin Amis, review of Pamlimpsest, in The Sunday Times, October 1995, in The War Against Cliche (2001)

 * Gore is a man without an unconscious.
 * Italo Calvino, as quoted in "GORE VIDAL, 1925–2012 : Prolific, Elegant, Acerbic Writer" in The New York Times (1 August 2012)

 * Gore Vidal is a national icon...He is one of the best-known chroniclers of American history and politics...Following the publication of the first two of his latest trilogy of books examining the American empire, Vidal was described as the last "noble defender" of the American republic, America's last "small-r" republican.
 * Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman interview (June 8, 2004)

 * He was impressed by the young people who came to hear him, far less impressed by reviewers of his latest novel who seemed to have no historical education and therefore no context in which to place his fiction. For a writer steeped in Herodotus and Plotinus to be reviewed by those who have read neither must be galling. Gore is at heart an 18th-century man who belongs among those framers of the American Constitution — men who knew their Greek and Roman history and philosophy, and took the long, historical view of governments. His living on a promontory surrounded by ancient artefacts is indeed just what an 18th-century philosopher would do. He lives in splendid isolation — aiming fiery feuilletons at a dumb and dumber world. Gore Vidal understands what America might be if it didn't betray its own ideals — the ideals we gave the world and then renounced in favour of corporate oligarchy and the perpetual war machine. When we said goodbye after dinner and headed back to the sailboat we had anchored on the coast, I was inspired. Gore Vidal is everything a writer should be: a voice for sanity in a mad world.
 * Erica Jong, in "Into the lion's den" in The Guardian (26 October 2000)

 * An avowed atheist, Vidal insists that his image as an acid-tongued “gentleman bitch" is no pose: “I'm exactly as I appear. There is no warm loveable person inside. Beneath my cold exterior, once you break the ice, you find cold water."
 * Current Biography Yearbook, Vol. 44 (1983), edited by Charles Moritz, p. 427

 * He is the most Swiftian writer we have in his savage pessimism about the human condition, his unresolved paradoxes, his hatred of hypocrisy, corruption and the kind of patriotism which means nothing more than "persuading a man to kill a man he doesnít know".
 * Victoria Glendinning, in "Like Monty Python with dripping fangs", in Daily Telegraph (27 February 1999).

title: Gore Vidal


text:
Job: A Comedy of Justice

Job: A Comedy of Justice (1984) is a novel by Robert A. Heinlein, satirizing various notions of Heaven, Hell, deities and the destiny of Humanity. The novel's name invokes the biblical story of Job, and the satire Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice by James Branch Cabell.

Quotes

 * All page numbers are from the mass market paperback edition published by Del Rey Books, ISBN 0-345-31650-9, 21st printing
 * All italics and ellipses as in the book
 * Bold face has been added for emphasis

 * Let this be a lesson to you. Learn by my bad example. Never let an oaf cause you to lose your judgment.
 * Chapter 1 (p. 4) - Alexander Hergensheimer (aka Alec Graham)

 * My father used to tell me, "Alex, there is nothing wrong with being scared...as long as you don't let it affect you until the danger is over. Being hysterical is okay, too...afterwards and in private. Tears are not unmanly...in the bathroom with the door locked. The difference between a coward and a brave man is mostly a matter of timing."
 * Chapter 2 (p. 13) - Alec

 * Hypotheses:
 * a) Something preposterous has happened to the world around me, or
 * b) Something preposterous has happened to Alex Hergensheimer's mind; he should be locked up and sedated.
 * I could not think of a third hypothesis; those two seemed to cover all bases. The second hypothesis I need not waste time on. If I were raising snakes in my hat, eventually other people would notice and come around with a straitjacket and put me in a nice padded room. So let's assume that I am sane (or nearly so; being a little bit crazy is helpful). If I am okay, then the world is out of joint. Let's take stock.
 * Chapter 2 (p. 14) - Alec

 * Did something happen to me like that which Mr. Wells described in Men Like Gods? Did Mr. Wells have the holy gift of prophecy? For example, would men someday actually fly to the moon? Preposterous!
 * Chapter 2 (p. 17) - Alec

 * Never marry a woman who prays too much.
 * Chapter 6 (p. 69) - Alec

 * “Look, do you believe me?” She answered slowly and carefully, “I believe that you are telling the truth as you see it. But the truth I see is very different.”
 * Chapter 7 (p. 73) - Margrethe

 * The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
 * Chapter 8 (p. 93) - Alec

 * I knew that flying machines were impossible; in engineering school I had studied Professor Simon Newcomb's well-known mathematical proof that the efforts of Professor Langley and others to build an aerodyne capable of carrying a man were doomed, useless, because scale theory proved that no such contraption large enough to carry a man could carry a heat-energy plant large enough to lift it off the ground—much less a passenger. That was science's final word on a folly and it put a stop to wasting public monies on a will-o'-the-wisp. Research and development money went into airships, where it belonged, with enormous success. However, in the past few days I had gained a new angle on the idea of "impossible". When a veritable flying machine showed up in our sky, I was not greatly surprised.
 * Chapter 8 (p. 97) - Alec

 * “Paranoia is the only rational approach to a conspiracy world.” “But, Alec, the world ought not to be that way.” “There is no ‘ought’ to it, my love. The essence of philosophy is to accept the universe as it is, rather than try to force it into some preconceived shape.”
 * Chapter 9 (p. 101) - Alec and Margrethe

 * Some problems are best let be, not chewed over with words. This modern compulsion to “talk it out” is a mistake at least as often as it is a solution.
 * Chapter 11 (p. 132) - Alec

 * Margrethe said nothing—characteristically. If she disagreed, she usually said nothing. She seemed to have no interest in winning arguments, in which she must differ from 99 percent of the human race...many of whom appear willing to suffer any disaster rather than lose an argument.
 * Chapter 11 (p. 135) - Alec

 * At Ragnarok the world as we know it will be destroyed. But that is not the end. After a long time, a time of healing, a new universe will be created, one better and cleaner and free from the evils of this world. It too will last for countless millennia...until again the forces of evil and cold contend against the forces of goodness and light...and again there is a time of rest, followed by a new creation and another chance for men. Nothing is ever finished, nothing is ever perfect, but over and over again the race of men gets another chance to do better than last time, ever and again without end.
 * Chapter 11 (pp. 138-139) - Margrethe

 * The logical reconciliation of Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnibenevolence is the thorniest problem in theology, one causing even Jesuits to break their teeth.
 * Chapter 11 (p. 139) - Alec

 * Alec, do you believe in your heart that your God caused bears to tear up little children merely because they made fun of an old man's bald head?
 * Chapter 11 (pp. 139-140) - Margrethe

 * Jehovah destroyed city after city, every man, woman, and child, down to the youngest baby. Odin killed only in combat against opponents his own size. But, most important difference of all, Father Odin is not all powerful and does not claim to be all wise.
 * Chapter 11 (p. 140) - Margrethe

 * The Jehovah or Yahweh of the Old Testament seems to me to be a sadistic, bloodthirsty, genocidal villain.
 * Chapter 11 (p. 140) - Margrethe

 * I am sorry...but I do believe that Loki is loose. The signs show it. Now anything can happen. We enter the Twilight of the Gods. Ragnarok comes. Our world ends.
 * Chapter 11 (p. 141) - Margrethe

 * Did I believe her theory about Loki and Ragnarok? Of course not! Oh, I had no objection to calling Armageddon by the name "Ragnarok." Jesus or Joshua or Jesu; Mary or Miriam or Maryam or Maria, Jehovah or Yahweh—any verbal symbol will do as long as speaker and listener agree on meaning. But Loki? Ask me to believe that a mythical demigod of an ignorant, barbarian race has wrought changes in the whole universe? Now, really!
 * Chapter 12 (p. 142) - Alec

 * One does not persuade a butterfly to light on one’s hand by brandishing a sword.
 * Chapter 12 (p. 145)- Alec

 * I have never been a Millenarianist. I am aware how often the number one thousand appears in the Bible, especially in prophecy — but I have never believed that the Almighty was constrained to work in even millennia — or any other numbering patterns — just to please numerologists.
 * Chapter 12 (p. 146) - Alec

 * I am never one of those back-to-nature freaks who sneer at engineering; I have more reason than most people to respect engineering. Most people who sneer at technology would starve to death if the engineering infrastructure were removed.
 * Chapter 14 (p. 196) - Alec

 * A miracle that takes place again and again and again is no longer a miracle; it’s just a nuisance.
 * Chapter 17 (p. 248) - Margrethe

 * Wisdom includes not getting angry unnecessarily. The Law ignores trifles and the wise man does, too.
 * Chapter 18 (p. 278) - Lucifer (as Jerry Farnsworth) to Roderick Lyman Culverson III (aka Israfel)

 * I can’t see proof in the dreams of long-dead prophets; you can read anything into them.
 * Chapter 18 (p. 283) - Jerry to Alec

 * Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn’t there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything. Oh, my church, too—but at least mine is honestly pantheistic. Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a monotheism can believe anything—just give him time to rationalize it. Forgive me for being blunt.
 * Chapter 18 (p. 283) - Jerry to Alec

 * I learned long ago, in dealing with legislators, that anyone who tries to keep you from having a witness is bad news.
 * Chapter 20 (p. 300) - Alec

 * There were most questions, mostly silly, confirming an opinion I had kept to myself for years: Piety does not imply horse sense.
 * Chapter 22 (p. 330) - Alec

 * I don’t know how long it took to reach the Throne. In Heaven the light doesn’t vary and the weather does not change and I had no watch. It was simply a boringly long time. Boring? Yes. A gorgeous palace constructed of precious stones is a wonderful sight to see. A dozen palaces constructed of jewels can be a dozen wonderful sights, each different from the other. But a hundred miles of such palaces will put you to sleep, and six hundred miles of the same is deadly dull. I begin to long for a used-car lot, or a dump, or (best yet) the stretch of green and open countryside.
 * Chapter 22 (p. 343) - Alec

 * For modern man one of the most troubling aspects of eternity lies in getting used to the slippery quality of time. With no clocks and no calendars and lacking even the alternation of day and night, or the phases of the moon, or the pageant of seasons, duration becomes subjective and "What time is it?" is a matter of opinion, not of fact.
 * Chapter 24 (p. 367) - Alec

 * My first intimation that I was getting close to Hell was the stink. Rotten eggs. H2S. Hydrogen sulfide. The stench of burning brimstone.
 * Chapter 24 (p. 368) - Alec

 * “With patience and plenty of saliva the elephant deflowered the mosquito.”
 * Chapter 24 (p. 369)

 * I know this character. If he's a saint, I'm a pink monkey—
 * Chapter 24 (p. 371) - Bert Kinsey, about Alec, just before he is transformed into a pink monkey

 * “Mr. Ashmedai is city manager; Satan never does any work. Why should he? He owns this planet.” “This is a planet.” “You think maybe it’s a comet? Look out that window. Prettiest planet in this galaxy. And the best kept. No snakes. No cockroaches. No chiggers. No poison ivy. No tax collectors. No rats. No cancer. No preachers. Only two lawyers.” “You make it sound like Heaven.” “Never been there.”
 * Chapter 24 (pp. 372-373) - Bert

 * Hell isn’t very organized. It’s an anarchy except for a touch of absolute monarchy on some points.
 * Chapter 25 (p. 378) - Pat (aka Sister Mary Patricia) to Alec

 * I’m not an imp faking human; I’m human. You don’t think anyone could get a job like this without human experience, do you? You have to be human right down to your toes to to please a fellow human most; that stuff about the superior erotic ability of succubi is just their advertising.
 * Chapter 25 (p. 381) - Pat

 * I have never lied to you. I've had to hold back some things until I was free to speak, that's all.
 * Chapter 25 (p. 389) - Pat

 * “You are trying to make a fool of Me, in front of My gentlemen.” “No, Your Majesty, I cannot make a fool of You. Only You can do that.”
 * Chapter 26 (p. 392) - Satan and Alec

 * Oh, come! I don’t want your soul. There’s no market for souls today; there are far too many of them and the quality is way down. I can pick them up at a nickel a bunch, like radishes. But I don’t; I’m overstocked.
 * Chapter 26 (p. 393) - Satan

 * But plenty of money (how well I knew it!) made hard things easy and impossible things merely difficult.
 * Chapter 26 (p. 395) - Alec

 * “Uh…is this Texas? Or is it Hell?” “Matter of opinion,” Jerry said. “Is there a difference?” asked Sybil. “Hard to tell,” said Katie.
 * Chapter 27 (p. 399)

 * Alec, you've got to remember that you are human...and I am not. I have powers that you can't imagine. I have limitations that you cannot imagine, too. So hold your peace and listen.
 * Chapter 27 (p. 401) - Lucifer to Alec

 * Trust Jerry. If He is to help you, He must do things beyond your ken. Would you try to direct a brain surgeon? Or attempt to hurry one?
 * Chapter 27 (p. 402) - Katie (aka Rahab) to Alec

 * Behind every mystery lies another mystery. Infinite recession. But you don't need to know final answers — if there be such — and neither do I.
 * Chapter 27 (p. 403) - Satan (as Jerry) to Alec

 * “Alec, ‘justice’ is not a divine concept; it is a human illusion. The very basis of the Judeo-Christian code is injustice, the scapegoat system. The scapegoat sacrifice runs all through the Old Testament, then it reaches its height in the New Testament with the notion of the Martyred Redeemer. How can justice possibly be served by loading your sins on another? Whether it be a lamb having its throat cut ritually, or a Messiah nailed to a cross and ‘dying for your sins.’ Somebody should tell all of Yahweh’s followers, Jews and Christians, that there is no such thing as a free lunch.”
 * Chapter 27 (p. 411) - Satan (as Jerry) to Alec

 * “Go ahead, say it.” “‘Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done—’” “Stop! Stop right there. ‘Thy will be done—’ No Muslim claiming to be a ‘slave of God’ ever gave a more sweeping consent than that. In that prayer you invite Him to do His worst. The perfect masochist.
 * Chapter 27 (p. 412) - Satan (as Jerry) to Alec

 * I suppose every man has doubts at times about God's justice. I admit that I had been much troubled lately and had been forced to remind myself again and again that God's ways are not man's ways, and that I could not expect always to understand the purposes of the Lord. But I could not speak my misgivings aloud, and least of all to the Lord's Ancient Adversary. It was especially upsetting that Satan chose at this moment to have the shape and the voice of my only friend. Debating with the Devil is a mug's game at best.
 * Chapter 28 (p. 413) - Alec

 * “You see?” “I suppose I do. About as well as a cow understands calculus.
 * Chapter 28 (p. 417) - Alec

 * “I did not say that the world was created twenty-three billion years ago; I said that was its age. It was created old. Created with fossils in the ground and craters on the moon, all speaking of great age. Created that way by Yahweh, because it amused Him to do so. One of those scientists said, ‘God does not roll dice with the universe.’ Unfortunately not true. Yahweh rolls loaded dice with His universe…to deceive His creatures.” “Why would He do that?” “Lucifer says that it is because He is a poor Artist, the sort who is always changing His mind and scraping the canvas. And a practical joker. But I’m really not entitled to an opinion; I’m not at that level. And Lucifer is prejudiced where His Brother is concerned; I think that is obvious.
 * Chapter 28 (p. 419) - Katie to Alec

 * Alec, to be able to read and write is as wonderful as sex. Or almost.
 * Chapter 28 (p. 420) - Katie

 * Lucifer always has reasons for what He does. He rarely explains. His intentions are malevolent only toward malicious people ...which you are not.
 * Chapter 28 (p. 423) - Katie to Alex

 * “Listen carefully. I am about to take you in to see—no, for you to be seen by—an Entity who is to me, and to my brother your god Yahweh, as Yahweh is to you. Understand me?” “Uh…maybe. I’m not sure.” “A is to B as B is got C. To this Entity your lord god Jehovah is equivalent to a child building sand castles at a beach, then destroying them in childish tantrums. To Him, I am a child, too. I look up to Him as you look up to your triple deity—father, son, and holy ghost. I don’t worship this Entity as God; He does not demand, does not expect, and does not want, that sort of bootlicking. Yahweh may be the only god who ever thought up that curious vice—at least I do not know of another planet or place in any universe where god-worship is practiced. But I am young and not much traveled.”
 * Chapter 28 (p. 425) - Jerry to Alec

 * You are in great danger. And so am I, although I think your danger is much greater than mine. But, Alec, I can assure you of this: If It decides to extinguish you, you will never know it. It is not a sadistic God.
 * Chapter 28 (p. 426) - Jerry to Alec

 * Mr. Chairman, almost everything about a human creature is ridiculous, except its ability to suffer bravely and die gallantly for whatever it loves and believes in. The validity of that belief, the appropriateness of that love, is irrelevant; it is the bravery and the gallantry that count. These are uniquely human qualities, independent of mankind’s creator, who has none of them himself—as I know, since he is my brother...and I lack them, too.
 * Chapter 28 (p. 428) - Lucifer to Koshchei

 * There is an artistic principle — not a rule — that volitionals should be treated consistently. But to insist on kindness would be to eliminate that degree of freedom for which volition in creatures was invented. Without the possibility of tragedy the volitionals might as well be golems.
 * Chapter 28 (p. 429) - Koshchei to Lucifer

 * For a creature to act out its own minor art, the rules under which it acts must be either known to it or be such that the rules can become known through trial and error — with error not always fatal. In short the creature must be able to learn and to benefit by its experience.
 * Chapter 28 (p. 429) - Koshchei to Lucifer

 * Oy! Every prophecy I fulfilled! And now He tells me consistent I am not! This is justice?
 * Chapter 28 (p. 434) - Yahweh to Koshchei

 * A man who is happy at home doesn’t lie awake nights worrying about the hereafter.
 * Chapter 29 (p. 438) - Alec

 * I have what I want. I would not want to be a saint in Heaven if Margrethe was not with me; I wouldn't fear going to Hell if she was there — not that I believe in Hell or ever stood a chance of being a saint in Heaven. Samuel Clemens put it: "Where she was, there was Eden." Omar phrased it: "—thou beside me in the wilderness, ah wilderness were paradise enow." Browning termed it: Summum Bonum. All were asserting the same great truth, which is for me: Heaven is where Margrethe is.
 * Chapter 29 (pp. 438-439) - Alec; closing words

title: Job: A Comedy of Justice


text:
Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet (25 October 1838 – 3 June 1875) was a French composer of the romantic era most famous for his opera Carmen.

Quotes

 * As a musician I tell you that if you were to suppress adultery, fanaticism, crime, evil, the supernatural, there would no longer be the means for writing one note.
 * Letter to Edmond Galabert, and G. (October 1866), as quoted in Letters of Composers: An Anthology, 1603-1945 (1946) edited by Gertrude Norman and Miriam Lubell Shrifte, p. 241

 * Ah, music! What a beautiful art! But what a wretched profession!
 * Starement of 3 August 1867, as quoted in An Encyclopedia of Quotations about Music (1981) by Nat Shapiro, p. 115

title: Georges Bizet


text:
Matt Groening

Matt Groening (born February 15, 1954) American cartoonist; member of the Rock Bottom Remainders.

Quotes

 * It rhymes with complaining.
 * Regarding his last name; as quoted in "We hope you like rabbits — introducing 'Life In Hell'" by Al Morch,  (March 26, 1986), p. 49
 * Where do babies come from? Don't bother asking adults. They lie like pigs. However, diligent independent research and hours of playground consultation have yielded fruitful, if tentative, results. There are several theories. Near as we can figure out, it has something to do with acting ridiculous in the dark. We believe it is similar to dogs when they act peculiar and ride each other. This is called "making love". Careful study of popular song lyrics, advertising catch-lines, TV sitcoms, movies, and T-Shirt inscriptions offers us significant clues as to its nature. Apparently it makes grown-ups insipid and insane. Some graffiti was once observed that said "sex is good." All available evidence, however, points to the contrary.
 * Bongo in Childhood Is Hell (1988)

title: Matt Groening