Gore Vidal citáty
Gore Vidal
Datum narození: 3. říjen 1925
Datum úmrtí: 31. červenec 2012
Gore Vidal, vlastním jménem Eugene Luther Vidal jr., byl americký spisovatel, scenárista a politik. Psal také pod pseudonymy Edgar Box, Cameron Kay a Katherine Everard.
Narodil se v rodině leteckého instruktora na vojenské akademii ve West Pointu ve státě New York. V letech 1943-46 sloužil v armádě, ale už v tomto raném údobí svého života napsal během svého vojenského pobytu v Tichomoří svůj první román - Williwaw – strohý a zdařilý popis boje mužů s živly.
V románu The City and the Pillar rozmnožuje počet mužských postav, jejich různých problémů, jejich hledání a bloudění. Senzaci vzbudil motiv homosexuality, jež se přenáší i do dalšího románu The Season of Comfort .
Jeho dědeček, populární slepý senátor za Oklahomu, snil o tom, že si jeho vnuk, který ho už jako desetiletý vodil do Kongresu, zvolí politickou kariéru, ale ten dal nakonec přednost spisovatelské dráze. Politika ale stále byla předmětem jeho zájmu a dokonce se dvakrát ucházel o významné politické funkce – jednou o křeslo člena Sněmovny reprezentantů za New York, podruhé o senátorství v Kalifornii.
Vydal hodně přes dvacet románů a jeden povídkový soubor, napsal pět divadelních her a řadu filmových a televizních scénářů a byl výrazně činný publicisticky. Velmi otevřeně hovořil o homosexualitě i politice. Se svým životním partnerem Howardem Austenem se seznámil v roce 1950.
Citáty Gore Vidal
„Nikdy neměj děti. Jenom vnoučata.“
[(en) Never have children, only grandchildren.]
Zdroj: [Vidal, Gore, Palimpsest: a memoir, Random House, 1995, 33, anglicky]
„V geopolitice, stejně jako ve fyzice, neexistuje žádná akce bez reakce. Žádné 11. září nebylo. Chci tím říct - naše politika byla taková, že jsme museli pobláznit spoustu lidí v arabském světě, aby se nás snažili vyhodit do vzduchu, protože cítí, že námi páchané zločiny byly spáchány na nich. To přece pochopí každý blbec. A jedním z těch blbců jsem i já.“
Zdroj: [Hari, Johann, Gore Vidal: Za duchy amerického století, literarky.cz, 2009-10-20, 2011-02-19, http://www.literarky.cz/component/content/article/1485-gore-vidal-za-duchy-americkeho-stoleti]
„Narcista je člověk, který vypadá lépe než vy.“
[(en) A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.]
Zdroj: [The American spectator, Svazek 26, 1993, 80, anglicky]
„Já jsem byl při Obamově zvolení optimista, jako všichni, jenže on na to nemá. Znovu už zvolen nebude. Je smůla, že je prvním intelektuálem-prezidentem, jakého jsme měli za mnoho let, ale on to nezmákne. Je zavalený. A kdo by nebyl? Spojené státy jsou obyčejný blázinec. Tu zemi by měl někdo strčit někam do kouta - a nám všem by měl říct, ať jdeme jinam. Nic už tam nedává smysl.“
Zdroj: [Hari, Johann, Gore Vidal: Za duchy amerického století, literarky.cz, 2009-10-20, 2011-02-19, http://www.literarky.cz/component/content/article/1485-gore-vidal-za-duchy-americkeho-stoleti]
„Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the higher altruism.“
Zdroj: 1990s, Screening History (1992), Ch. 1: The Prince and the Pauper, p. 24
Kontext: Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the higher altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meanings of words is a very small price to pay for the freedom not only to conform but to consume.
„How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself.“
— Gore Vidal, kniha Julian
Zdroj: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 1, Libanius to Priscus, Antioch March 380
„Half the American people never read a newspaper. Half never vote for President — the same half?“
Sometimes quoted as: Half of the American people never read a newspaper. Half never voted for president. One hopes it is the same half.
[Bill, Maxwell, http://www.sptimes.com/2002/07/07/Columns/In_gloomy_times__let_.shtml, In gloomy times, let's try to find a sense of humor, St. Petersberg Times, 2002-07-07, 2008-10-04]
Varianta: Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
Zdroj: 1990s, Screening History (1992), Ch. 1: The Prince and the Pauper, p. 5
„It is reasonable to assume that, by and large, what is not read now will not be read, ever.“
"Thomas Love Peacock: The Novel of Ideas" (1980)
1980s, The Second American Revolution (1983)
Kontext: It is reasonable to assume that, by and large, what is not read now will not be read, ever. It is also reasonable to assume that practically nothing that is read now will be read later. Finally, it is not too farfetched to imagine a future in which novels are not read at all.
„Nothing human is finally calculable; even to ourselves we are strange.“
Zdroj: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 4
Kontext: They say to know oneself is to know all there is that is human. But of course no one can ever know himself. Nothing human is finally calculable; even to ourselves we are strange.
„The period of Prohibition — called the noble experiment — brought on the greatest breakdown of law and order the United States has known until today. I think there is a lesson here.“
"The State of the Union" (1975)
1970s, Homage to Daniel Shays : Collected Essays (1972), Matters of Fact and Fiction : Essays 1973 - 1976 (1978)
Kontext: The period of Prohibition — called the noble experiment — brought on the greatest breakdown of law and order the United States has known until today. I think there is a lesson here. Do not regulate the private morals of people. Do not tell them what they can take or not take. Because if you do, they will become angry and antisocial and they will get what they want from criminals who are able to work in perfect freedom because they have paid off the police.
„History is nothing but gossip about the past, with the hope that it might be true.“
Quoted in Gert Jonkers, "Gore Vidal, the Fantastic Man," Butt, No. 20 (7 April 2007)
2000s
Kontext: Everybody likes a bit of gossip to some point, as long as it’s gossip with some point to it. That’s why I like history. History is nothing but gossip about the past, with the hope that it might be true.
„We should stop going around babbling about how we're the greatest democracy on earth, when we're not even a democracy. We are a sort of militarised republic.“
"Gore Vidal and the Mind of the Terrorist" http://www.abc.net.au/arts/books/stories/s432193.htm, interview by Ramona Koval, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio National (November 2001)
2000s
Kontext: We should stop going around babbling about how we're the greatest democracy on earth, when we're not even a democracy. We are a sort of militarised republic. The founding fathers hated two things, one was monarchy and the other was democracy, they gave us a constitution that saw to it we will have neither. I don't know how wise they were.
„A current pejorative adjective is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adjective is often applied to those “liberals” who prefer to improve the lives of others rather than exploit them.“
"Growing Up With Gore Vidal," Screening History (1994), p. 24.
1990s
Kontext: A current pejorative adjective is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adjective is often applied to those “liberals” who prefer to improve the lives of others rather than exploit them. Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the highest altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meanings of words is a very small price to pay for our vast freedom not only to conform but to consume.
