I’m not sentimental about anything. Life flows by, and you flow with it or you don’t. Move on and move out.
Interpretation
Life is constantly changing, and one must adapt rather than cling to the past.
Gore Vidal's quote emphasizes the transient nature of life, suggesting that attachment to the past is futile. Instead, it encourages individuals to embrace change and flow with life's currents, advocating for resilience and the necessity of moving forward, both physically and emotionally.
In practice
During a motivational talk about overcoming adversity.
We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.
Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.
The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.
Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.
We have hands; we can stand on them if we want to. That's our privilege. That's the joy of a mortal body. And that's why God needs us. Because God loves to feel things through our hands.
We are the dead. Our only true life is in the future.
Women do not want power over men, they want power over themselves.
There are two methods, or means, and only two, whereby man's needs and desires can be satisfied. One is the production and exchange of wealth; this is the economic means. The other is the uncompensated appropriation of wealth produced by others; this is the political means.
But what is quackery? It is commonly an attempt to cure the diseases of a man by addressing his body alone. There is need of a physician who shall minister to both soul and body at once, that is, to man. Now he falls between two stools.
You are awareness, disguised as a person.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.