The Very Best of Gore Vidal’s Classic Quotes

By Periscope @periscopepost
Gore Vidal. Photo credit: David Shankbone http://flic.kr/p/79tH6w

The background

Gore Vidal has died at the age of 86 from complications of pneumonia. Hailed as an “elegant, acerbic all-around man of letters” by The New York Times, Vidal published 25 novels, as well as memoirs, essay collections and plays. He also appeared as a commentator on the talk-show circuit and even made a guest appearance on The Simpsons.

Read more on Vidal here.

King of quotes

Twitter has been awash with Vidal’s many classic quotes. Here’s The Periscope Post‘s pick of the bunch:

On friendship: “Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little”

On celebrity: “One should never miss a chance either to have sex or to appear on television”

On US politics: “Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically by definition be disqualified from ever doing so.”

On America: “Envy is the central fact of American life”

On physical appearance: “A narcissist is someone better looking than you are”‘

On success: “It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail”

On apathy: “Fifty percent of people won’t vote, and fifty percent don’t read newspapers. I hope it’s the same fifty percent.”

Half of Twitter knew who Gore Vidal was. Half posted one of his quotes. One hopes it’s the same half

— Alexi Mostrous (@AlexiMostrous) August 1, 2012

Read more Vidal quotes here.