Quotes from The City and the Pillar

Gore Vidal ·  207 pages

Rating: (5.6K votes)


“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


About the author

Gore Vidal
Born place: in West Point, New York, The United States
Born date October 3, 1925
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“We can be a victim or a creator. One takes negative memories to use as a crutch, remain the same and blame. The latter takes negative memories accepting responsibility for choosing the situation to learn, evolve and change.”
― Juls Amor, quote from THE YEAR OF THE FROG


“We all play our roles. One person plants the seed, another waters it, but it grows only when the season is right.”
― Ted Dekker, quote from Water Walker


“She had always enjoyed the warm, calming feeling of the sand. It slipped as a silken scarf of liquid sunshine across the surface of her skin. Kayn took one hand and ran it over the surface of the sand, and it shifted as though it had been moved by a light breeze without her hand making contact. Her life now had no room for feet being firmly planted on the ground. She had to allow her mind to take off in flight and accept the impossible. She had to embrace life as a toddler. In a child's world, every breath of life is a mystery; everything had the possibility of being magic.”
― Kim Cormack, quote from Enlightenment


“A good lawyer serves you from the cradle to the grave”
― Saira Viola, quote from Jukebox: a stylish London crime novel


“Remember the Butterfly Effect. Tiny cause, huge effect. A”
― Harry Beckwith, quote from Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing


Interesting books

Bruiser
(13.9K)
Bruiser
by Neal Shusterman
Penmarric
(4.8K)
Penmarric
by Susan Howatch
Cage
(25.6K)
Cage
by Harper Sloan
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
(17.5K)
Notes of a Dirty Old...
by Charles Bukowski
The Weight of Water
(23.5K)
The Weight of Water
by Anita Shreve
Sonnets from the Portuguese
(10.2K)
Sonnets from the Por...
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters 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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.