“We affect one another quite enough merely by existing. Whenever the stars cross, or is it comets? fragments pass briefly from one orbit to another. On rare occasions there is total collision, but most often the two simply continue without incident, neither losing more than a particle to the other, in passing.”
― Gore Vidal, quote from The City and the Pillar
“Ideally, of course, a relationship is best, but then how many people are capable of deep feeling? Practically none.”
― Gore Vidal, quote from The City and the Pillar
“Americans tend to play different roles, hoping that somehow they’ll stumble on the right one.”
― Gore Vidal, quote from The City and the Pillar
“Nothing that ever was changes. Yet nothing that is can ever be the same as what went before.”
― Gore Vidal, quote from The City and the Pillar
“عاد وحيداً و سعيداً ، مع ثلاثة كؤوسٍ موضوعةٍ أمامه على الطاوله : اثنان فارغان ، وواحد نصف مملوء و عليه آثار أحمر شفاه . رتَّبَ الكؤوس لتُشكِّلَ مثلثاً ، لكنه حين حاولَ ان يرتِّبها على شكلِ مربِّعٍ فشل . لماذا ؟ لأنَّ ثلاثة كؤوس يجب أن تكون قادرةً على تشكيلِ مربَّع . و شعر بالحزن .”
― Gore Vidal, quote from The City and the Pillar
“يبدو أن كثيرين من الجنوبيين يكتبون . ربما بسبب الحرب الأهلية . يجب الحصول على مأساة لكي نحصل على أدب .”
― Gore Vidal, quote from The City and the Pillar
“As the late afternoon sun shone in Shaw's face and a soft flower-scented wind cooled him, his unhappiness turned to a detachment that was not at all unpleasant. He was utterly alone in the world. This knowledge thrilled him.”
― Gore Vidal, quote from The City and the Pillar
Gore Vidal
Born place: in West Point, New York, The United States
Born date October 3, 1925
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“I've proved my point. I've demonstrated there's no difference between me and everyone else! All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day. You had a bad day once, am I right? I know I am. I can tell. You had a bad day and everything changed. Why else would you dress up as a flying rat? You had a bad day, and it drove you as crazy as everybody else... Only you won't admit it! You have to keep pretending that life makes sense, that there's some point to all this struggling! God you make me want to puke. I mean, what is it with you? What made you what you are? Girlfriend killed by the mob, maybe? Brother carved up by some mugger? Something like that, I bet. Something like that... Something like that happened to me, you know. I... I'm not exactly sure what it was. Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another... If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice! Ha ha ha! But my point is... My point is, I went crazy. When I saw what a black, awful joke the world was, I went crazy as a coot! I admit it! Why can't you? I mean, you're not unintelligent! You must see the reality of the situation. Do you know how many times we've come close to world war three over a flock of geese on a computer screen? Do you know what triggered the last world war? An argument over how many telegraph poles Germany owed its war debt creditors! Telegraph poles! Ha ha ha ha HA! It's all a joke! Everything anybody ever valued or struggled for... it's all a monstrous, demented gag! So why can't you see the funny side? Why aren't you laughing?”
― Alan Moore, quote from Batman: The Killing Joke
“It takes just one, he says over and over. You hear that all the time in this business. One big case, and you can retire. That's one reason lawyers do so many sleazy things, like full-color ads in the yellow pages, and billboards, and placards on city buses, and telephone solicitation. You hold your nose, ignore the stench of what you're doing, ignore the snubs and snobbery of big-firm lawyers, because it takes only one.”
― John Grisham, quote from The Rainmaker
“When one begins by expressing lack of competence in a given field, it usually implies that a flat opinion in that field will follow almost immediately”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from The End of Eternity
“The day you stop dreaming you might as well take yourself down to the undertaker’s, for you’re as good as dead.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, quote from The Tea Rose
“Draw a line in your mind. Never cross it again. You have a soul. It's damaged, but it's there. Don't let them take it from you, Elias.”
― Sabaa Tahir, quote from An Ember in the Ashes
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The Chocolate WarBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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