“Seward appreciated the honest and open way that Stanton lied; it was the hallmark of the truly great lawyer, and demonstrated a professional mastery not unlike his own.”
― Gore Vidal, quote from Lincoln
“I realize,” said Sumner, “that the press is hardly reliable.” Lincoln turned from the window; suddenly, he grinned. “Oh, yes, they are. They lie. And then they re-lie. So they are nothing if not re-lie-able.”
― Gore Vidal, quote from Lincoln
“In politics, as in love, opposites attract, and the misunderstandings that ensue tend to be as bitter and, as in love, as equally terminal.”
― Gore Vidal, quote from Lincoln
“Now you may not know this”—Lincoln shut his eyes—“but when I first ran for the Illinois legislature, I came out, more or less, for female suffrage; not exactly the most popular position to take back then, and in that part of the world.” “It is still not the most popular issue anywhere in the world, thank God.” “Well, Mrs. Frémont comes to see me late at night—right off the cars from the West—and threatens me to my face with an uprising against the government, led by the Frémonts and their radical friends. So I called her, in the nicest way, I thought, ‘Quite a lady politician,’ and she was madder than a wet hen and went and told everyone that I’d threatened her!” Lincoln sighed. “Is it possible that female suffrage may not be the answer to every human problem?”
― Gore Vidal, quote from Lincoln
“helped the boy-governor eat the remains of the fruit, they discussed how it was that newspapers sometimes knew all sorts of secrets that they ought not to have known—and certainly ought not to publish, when the rest of the time they had no interest in facts at all. “Whatever sounds as if it might suit the prejudices of the reader, that is what will be published,” said Chase.”
― Gore Vidal, quote from Lincoln
“It is my task always to know, particularly when I don’t.”
― Gore Vidal, quote from Lincoln
“You know what Mr. Bates called me?” Seward shook his head with wonder. “An unprincipled liar. And here I am one of the most heavily principled men in politics.” Lincoln chuckled. In every way, making allowances for regional differences, Seward’s humor was not unlike his own. “And since you’re a smart man, Governor, you never actually lie. Smart men never have to.”
― Gore Vidal, quote from Lincoln
Gore Vidal
Born place: in West Point, New York, The United States
Born date October 3, 1925
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“God,” said Benedict Fludd, “your God, that is, strides in and out of my life with no warning. One day he seems impossible—laughable, laughable—and the next, he is imperious.” He stopped. He said “It is like the phases of the moon, maybe. Or the seasons of the sphere we live on, rolling in and out of the light, skeleton trees one day, and then snow, and afterwards the bright green veil and after that the full heat and shining. Only it is neither regular nor predictable. And there are—others—who stride in, when he takes himself off. Who seem persuasive. Like Hindoo demons who are gods in their own terms.”
― A.S. Byatt, quote from The Children's Book
“Nothing has an unlikely quality. It is heavy.”
― Jeanette Winterson, quote from Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles
“Disgust with injustice may sharpen the desire for justice. Readers who don’t see this connection merely wish to be entertained, and I have neither skill nor desire to turn the agony of a people into entertainment.”
― Ayi Kwei Armah, quote from The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born
“Every day now, I found a chance to slip outside and leave food under the fence. I knew it was a drop in the ocean, but I could not do nothing.”
― Irene Gut Opdyke, quote from In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer
“Before me lies a voyage of a million miles, and my memory is the moonlight I will borrow to illuminate my way.”
― Tan Twan Eng, quote from The Garden of Evening Mists
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