Al Gore Quotes

Writers who teach tend to prefer literary theory to literature and tenure to all else. Writers who do not teach prefer the contemplation of Careers to art of any kind.

When the Presidential virus attacks the system there is a tendency for the patient in his fever to move from the Right or the Left to the Center where the curative votes are.

World events are the work of individuals whose motives are often frivolous, even casual.

I look into my own black heart.

I went to Europe to live in 1961. I'd never have written Julian if it hadn't been for the sequestered life that I led in Rome and the classical library at the America Academy.

In Southern Europe, we have, of course, very bad governments.

I'd still like to be the President, of course, and I think the best way to do that would be to raise an army and seize the Capital. This strikes me as true democracy.

I think since Watergate people are interested in what the past of this country was really like.

I'm a much worse guest than I am a host, and I'm not an awfully good host either. I really like being alone.

The New York Times is the worst in that hardly anybody can write English over there. Most of it reads like slight translations from the German.

Poor John Simon - what a nightmare, to wake up in the morning and realize that you are John Simon.

The whole point to American journalism is what ought to be true is true.

Never have varmints, only grandvarmints.

[Norman Mailer] is against masturbation, he's against homosexuality. He believes that murder is essentially sexual. I think he's rather an anthology of all the darkest American traits.

Everybody is bisexual, and that is a fact of human nature. Some people practice both, and some practice one thing, and some people practice another thing and that is the way human beings are.

I have no social position and I stay away from what is known as society as much as possible.

Vitriolic really is personal. I am vitriolic. I am savage.

I suppose my liking for Italy is partly atavism, my family are of the old Roman stock. They came from the Alps north of Venice.

I'm in favor of sexual encounters.

If 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.

People like to re-invent you, according to cliché. There are a lot of stores about me that really apply only to Capote or Mailer or somebody else. Everything is a mish mash.

Americans worship the Constitution but do not observe it.

What begins with comedy ends with comedy... in my short view of the matter.

I started to read my first book at about the age of six. I started to write a book simultaneously. Not to compete, just to augment. And that's how one starts. Or I started.

I don't think contemporary writers spend a lot of time reading each other. Particularly writers of the same nationality.

I don't seem to be cynical to myself but how what I say goes down with others is their problem. I'm realistic.

Age bothers everybody. I was never narcissistic about my looks, but people thought that I should be so therefore I was.

I have been on the cover of Time magazine. My father was on the cover of Time, and my grandfather was on the cover of Time.

The whole point to American journalism is what ought to be true is true. Since I ought to be arrogant, impressed with my social position, overwhelmed by my beauty, therefore I am.

Instead of finding alternative energy sources, we try to subjugate entire regions of the world. People do not understand that by doing this, the United States are going to absolute ruin.

No one reads novels anymore. And I don't see the situation improving. People prefer video games, reality TV, and films. There are so many reasons now not to read novels.

I am glad my life is coming to an end. To think that it might last another five hundred years, now that would be terrible, in my case.

I have never been particularly impressed by the self centered musings of my fellow writers.

The best novelist of my generation is an Italian living in Paris, still working and improving - Italo Calvino.

U.S. certainly are not warlike. We don't want that. We want to make money, which I always thought was one of the most admirable things about Americans.

Nixon was a Southern Rim President, and so antipathetic to the old guard.

The Americans are clever. They thoroughly understand things that have to do with money, war, death, sickness. And there is also a real tradition of skepticism in this country.

Come to me and show me a small cancer and I'll tell you you've got a small cancer that should be cut out. That's realism but in America it's called cynicism.

I don't deny or affirm anything. I'm not very personal.

I think the record industry, by and large what's left of it, is still totally homophobic. I think it's much less so in the film industry now, but the record industry, it's always been a man's world.

I think I turned to writing really just to wake up in the morning and be a musician and to have something to do, and feel like a musician every day even if I wasn't working.

I can remember in the early 60s that there were a couple of really dynamic women performers at the time - Brenda Lee, there was Connie Francis.

I don't like to think 10 years down the road.

I didn't expect us to be around after 25 years.

As part of Depeche Mode, I don't think it's right for me to be using my own songs for a solo project. I'm not a very prolific songwriter, so I keep those for Depeche Mode.

Kids today don't know that much about vinyl.

People are People still gets played to death on '80s stations. It was our first big break in America. It's not exactly my favorite song.

I'm not particularly prolific.

If you repeat yourself, then I think you're in danger of losing that fan base, because if you're not interesting yourselves, you're not interesting your audience.

I love being in the studio. If I'm at home, I will go to the studio pretty much every day anyway. It's just something that I like to do.