Buckley or Vidal Quiz: Citations and Further Info

Notes and Citations for the “Buckley or Vidal” Quiz

Quotes and Thoughts:

“The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so.” – Gore Vidal, Nov. 1 2000, The Independent, Section: News, “Gore Vidal: You ask the questions” [though variations of this quote have been attributed to others before him]

“The War on Drugs is lost.” – William F. Buckley in the National Review. The conservative pundit wrote several times in favor of the legalization of drugs, opining that government money was being wasted on this exercise.

“There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices.” – Vidal, New York Review of Books, 1985

“One can’t doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed.” – Buckley in National Review (and cited in the NY Times.)

“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.” – Vidal, 1974 interview

“Life can’t be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years.” – Buckley

“The more money an American accumulates, the less interesting he becomes.” – Vidal (cited numerous times, including in The Executive’s Quotation Book)

“A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.” – Vidal (“Vidal: ‘I’m at the Top of a Very Tiny Heap,'” profile by Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times, March 12, 1981)

Where Would You Rather Be?

Vidal for years lived in a villa on the Italian coast, and frequented film festivals, while Buckley enjoyed his yacht (as briefly glimpsed in Best of Enemies), and at least as a younger lad liked to ride horses.

Books

Both men wrote, and enjoyed, memoirs. Buckley actually wrote a children’s book,  The Temptation of Wilfred Malachey, and edited a children’s collection. He also wrote a series of spy novels around the character “Blackford Oakes.”

Vidal was famed for his historical fiction, including Burr, 1876, and Lincoln, as well as the erotic satire Myra Breckenridge. Vidal also wrote the pulp crime novel Thieves Fall Out.

Movies

Vidal mentioned Airplane! as one of his favorite films. [Source: Conversations with Gore Vidal]

Vidal was actually in the film Gattaca:

Vidal was also in the liberal-leaning satire Bob Roberts.

Of the Oscar-winning German film The Lives of Others, William F. Buckley wrote in his syndicated column that after the film was over, “I turned to my companion and said, ‘I think that is the best movie I ever saw.'”^[17]