[ on his role at a christening] Always a godfather, never a god.
[ on his role at a christening] Always a godfather, never a god.
I'm a born-again atheist.
I'm a born-again atheist.
The only time I went on stage, in the part of Dalton Trumbo, a blacklisted writer on Broadway, was r...
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The only time I went on stage, in the part of Dalton Trumbo, a blacklisted writer on Broadway, was right after Howard [Austen, his companion of 53 years] died. Before I knew it, I was standing out there in front of the audience. It was the best thing I ever did. If you want to drown your grief, play on Broadway.
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To write a script today means working for a committee of people who know nothing about movies, as op...
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To write a script today means working for a committee of people who know nothing about movies, as opposed, say, to real estate or the higher art of bookkeeping.
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My grandmother would say, "If it's in the newspapers, it's just not true." That was our automatic ta...
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My grandmother would say, "If it's in the newspapers, it's just not true." That was our automatic take.
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[on Ronald Reagan] A triumph of the embalmer's art.
[on Ronald Reagan] A triumph of the embalmer's art.
[on Barack Obama's 2008 Democratic Party nomination campaign] I liked the idea of him, but he never ...
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[on Barack Obama's 2008 Democratic Party nomination campaign] I liked the idea of him, but he never managed to get my interest. I was brought around by his overall intelligence - specifically when he did his speech on race and religion. He's our best demagogue since Huey Long or Martin Luther King.
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There are no homosexual people, only homosexual acts.
There are no homosexual people, only homosexual acts.
But John F. Kennedy had great charm. So has Barack Obama. He's better educated than Jack. And he's b...
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But John F. Kennedy had great charm. So has Barack Obama. He's better educated than Jack. And he's been a working senator. Jack never went to the office - he wanted the presidency and his father bought it for him.
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[on William F. Buckley] Looks and sounds not unlike Hitler, but without the charm.
[on William F. Buckley] Looks and sounds not unlike Hitler, but without the charm.
[asked to describe himself in one word] Realist.
[asked to describe himself in one word] Realist.
[on working in Hollywood in the 1950s] We did too much. Someone would ring up and say, "We've got a ...
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[on working in Hollywood in the 1950s] We did too much. Someone would ring up and say, "We've got a bar, a bedroom and a kind of ballroom. We've got Paul Newman and Vincent J. Donehue is going to direct. Can you think of a play?" In three or four days you'd write something to fit the sets and the cast.
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In the next few years, the empire is going to strike back at the Internet in the interest of protect...
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In the next few years, the empire is going to strike back at the Internet in the interest of protecting our children from porn, drugs and terrorism - all of which the U.S. government will claim is being peddled by the Internet. There is not a trick they won't pull to get control. After all, what better way to control everyone's mind, or at least the input of information?
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Shit has its own integrity.
Shit has its own integrity.
[on writer Carson McCullers] Of all our Southern writers, Carson McCullers is the one most likely to...
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[on writer Carson McCullers] Of all our Southern writers, Carson McCullers is the one most likely to endure.
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It's easy to sustain a relationship when sex plays no part and impossible, I have observed, when it ...
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It's easy to sustain a relationship when sex plays no part and impossible, I have observed, when it does.
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[on Truman Capote] Capote should be heard, not read.
[on Truman Capote] Capote should be heard, not read.
[on his 53-year relationship with Howard Austen] It is very easy to sustain a relationship when sex ...
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[on his 53-year relationship with Howard Austen] It is very easy to sustain a relationship when sex plays no part, and impossible when it does.
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A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.
A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.
It's realism. Life is mostly luck!
It's realism. Life is mostly luck!
Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.
Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.
[interview on Swedish radio, 2004] We pay large taxes to the government. The rich don't but the aver...
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[interview on Swedish radio, 2004] We pay large taxes to the government. The rich don't but the average working person does. We're the only First-World country that gets nothing back. There's no health service. The educational system is pre-Copernicus. It's a scandal. But the Americans don't know it because they have never been told about other countries. They just know they're bad.
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The best thing about being Anglophone is that you have two countries.
The best thing about being Anglophone is that you have two countries.
[on post-WW2 America, from 1945-1950] For the first time, the US was not involved in a war. The Depr...
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[on post-WW2 America, from 1945-1950] For the first time, the US was not involved in a war. The Depression was over. Suddenly, there were 13 million of us who'd served in the military and were home. There was a cultural burst that Americans had never known before: we became number one for things like ballet. We had dozens of first-rate poets, several not so bad novelists, wonderful music, Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland. It was a great moment, and it lasted for five years. Then the Korean War came, and we've never stopped being at war since.
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[on leaving La Rondinaia, Italy, for Hollywood when his partner Howard Austen had required specialis...
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[on leaving La Rondinaia, Italy, for Hollywood when his partner Howard Austen had required specialist treatment] It was an intelligent thing to live in California, [but now] as the American dictatorship gets going, I don't know if it's the right setting to say farewell to the Republic.
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Politics is made up of two words: "Poli," which is Greek for "many," and "tics," which are bloodsuck...
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Politics is made up of two words: "Poli," which is Greek for "many," and "tics," which are bloodsucking insects.
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It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
There is not one human problem that could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.
There is not one human problem that could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.
(On Anita Bryant) As to Anita's fear that she'll be assassinated? The only people who might shoot An...
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(On Anita Bryant) As to Anita's fear that she'll be assassinated? The only people who might shoot Anita Bryant are music lovers.
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I remember Grandfather, Senator T. P. Gore, always said, "This whole country is based on only one th...
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I remember Grandfather, Senator T. P. Gore, always said, "This whole country is based on only one thing: due process of law, involving Habeas Corpus." The only good thing England gave us was Magna Carta, which he regarded as sacred.
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I find stupidity very exciting. And I'm excited all day long.
I find stupidity very exciting. And I'm excited all day long.
[in 1988] I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the human race. I see no good ...
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[in 1988] I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the human race. I see no good in Judaism, Christianity or Islam -- good people, yes, but any religion based on a single, well, frenzied and virulent god, is not as useful to the human race as, say, Confucianism, which is not a religion but an ethical and educational system.
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[upon learning of Truman Capote's death] Good career move.
[upon learning of Truman Capote's death] Good career move.
The idea of a good society is something you do not need a religion and eternal punishment to buttres...
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The idea of a good society is something you do not need a religion and eternal punishment to buttress; you need a religion if you are terrified of death.
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[5/23/04] One day the Bush family may develop a conscience and they may develop some idea of statesm...
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[5/23/04] One day the Bush family may develop a conscience and they may develop some idea of statesmanship. But that day is nowhere near, that the Bush family will ever be anything but dishonorable. And so, we can't wait, but we've got to discuss how they have dishonored us and what they have done wrong, and replace them - with anything, at the moment.
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I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consulting adults.
I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consulting adults.
The protocols for impeachment are meant to be used. Of course Dick Cheney should be impeached, and t...
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The protocols for impeachment are meant to be used. Of course Dick Cheney should be impeached, and then I would impeach the president. They are guilty of high crimes against the Constitution of the United States. We have a bad government, just out of control. We have turned into a very ugly, totalitarian society.
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What matters finally is not the world's judgment of oneself but one's own judgment of the world. Any...
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What matters finally is not the world's judgment of oneself but one's own judgment of the world. Any writer who lacks this final arrogance will not survive very long, especially in America.
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(When asked by interviewer David Frost if his first sexual experience was heterosexual or homosexual...
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(When asked by interviewer David Frost if his first sexual experience was heterosexual or homosexual) I was too polite to ask.
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William Faulkner told me not to fall into the trap F. Scott Fitzgerald did. He thought you could mak...
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William Faulkner told me not to fall into the trap F. Scott Fitzgerald did. He thought you could make something out of a movie. You can't. Go, get the money, go home, write your books.
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[on America during the George W. Bush years] Never have so many things gone so wrong all at once. Sa...
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[on America during the George W. Bush years] Never have so many things gone so wrong all at once. Saboteurs and thieves have been in charge of every part of government.
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[regarding the US being an empire] It is a pointless empire, which gives a satirist like me great pl...
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[regarding the US being an empire] It is a pointless empire, which gives a satirist like me great pleasure, the fact that nothing makes any sense.
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Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.
Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.
The George W. Bush people have virtually got rid of Magna Carta and habeas corpus. In a normal repub...
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The George W. Bush people have virtually got rid of Magna Carta and habeas corpus. In a normal republic I would probably have raised an army and overthrown them. It will take a hundred years to put it all back.
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[an interview in 2007] I do a lot of reading of the dead. I finally got around after 50 years to rea...
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[an interview in 2007] I do a lot of reading of the dead. I finally got around after 50 years to reading all of Aristotlex. He's very good on republics, how they always come a cropper, and why. Required reading. Republics, once lost, don't easily come back.
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[observation, 1973] The bad movies we made twenty years ago are now regarded in altogether too many ...
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[observation, 1973] The bad movies we made twenty years ago are now regarded in altogether too many circles as important aspects of what the new illiterates want to believe is the only significant art form of the twentieth century. An entire generation has been brought up to admire the product of that era. Like so many dinosaur droppings, the old Hollywood films have petrified into something rich, strange, numinous-golden. For any survivor of the Writers' Table, it is astonishing to find young directors like Bertolucci, Bogdanovich, Truffaut reverently repeating or echoing or paying homage to the sort of kitsch we created first time round..
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When you get to a certain age, a juicy lawsuit is sometimes the only thing that gets you up in the m...
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When you get to a certain age, a juicy lawsuit is sometimes the only thing that gets you up in the morning.
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[on Hillary Clinton's 2008 Democratic Party nomination campaign] I think her strategy is more or les...
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[on Hillary Clinton's 2008 Democratic Party nomination campaign] I think her strategy is more or less insane. I'd always rather liked her. She's a perfectly able lawyer . . . But this long campaign, this daily search for the grail, has driven her crazy.
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My father was asked, "How do you explain Gore's courage?" "Courage about what?" replied my father. "...
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My father was asked, "How do you explain Gore's courage?" "Courage about what?" replied my father. "It's not courageous if you don't care what people think of you." He had my number. Of course, one does care, but which kind of people is the question.
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Those presidential ninnies should stick to throwing out baseballs and leave the important matters to...
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Those presidential ninnies should stick to throwing out baseballs and leave the important matters to serious people.
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[commenting on the giant Jerusalem set for Ben-Hur (1959)] This Jerusalem is the Jerusalem of Jesus ...
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[commenting on the giant Jerusalem set for Ben-Hur (1959)] This Jerusalem is the Jerusalem of Jesus Christ. He could move through the city and feel that He was absolutely at home. He would know where to go to order a pizza.
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Look, homophobia is fed into every child in the United States at birth. It is unrelenting, it never ...
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Look, homophobia is fed into every child in the United States at birth. It is unrelenting, it never lets up. They asked a whole raft of high school boys across the country a couple years ago, one of those polls about what they would most like to be in life, and what they would hate to be, and so forth, and what they would most hate to be was homosexual. There wasn't anyone, not one, who just skipped the question. They all said 'oh no, that's the worst thing you could be.'
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Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say and not giving a damn.
Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say and not giving a damn.
[interview in "The Secular Humanist Bulletin", Summer 1995] Once people get hung up on theology, the...
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[interview in "The Secular Humanist Bulletin", Summer 1995] Once people get hung up on theology, they've lost sanity forever. More people have been killed in the name of Jesus Christ than any other name in the history of the world.
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A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is an ability to articulate human relationships.
A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is an ability to articulate human relationships.
I never believed in John F. Kennedy's charisma. He was one of our worst presidents. Robert F. Kenned...
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I never believed in John F. Kennedy's charisma. He was one of our worst presidents. Robert F. Kennedy was a phony, a little Torquemada and their father [Joseph P. Kennedy] was a crook--should have been in jail.
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[on John McCain's 2008 Republican presidential campaign] Anyone could beat McCain! I've never met an...
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[on John McCain's 2008 Republican presidential campaign] Anyone could beat McCain! I've never met anyone in America who has the slightest respect for him. He went to a private school and came bottom of his class. He smashed up his aeroplane and became a prisoner of war, which he is trying to parlay into "war hero". He's a goddamned fool. He was on television talking about mortgages, and it was quite clear he does not know what a mortgage is. His head rattles as he walks.
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Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. [William Shakespeare] has perhaps twenty p...
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Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. [William Shakespeare] has perhaps twenty players, and Tennessee Williams has about five, and Samuel Beckett one - and maybe a clone of that one. I have ten or so, and that's a lot. As you get older, you become more skillful at casting them.
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I don't go to movies for love, do you?
I don't go to movies for love, do you?
