If most men and women were forced to rely upon physical charm to attract lovers, their sexual lives would be not only meager but in a youth-worshiping country like America painfully brief.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the limitations of relying solely on physical attractiveness in romantic relationships.
Gore Vidal's quote suggests that if individuals had to depend solely on their physical charm to attract partners, the quality and longevity of their romantic experiences would diminish significantly. In a society that often idolizes youth and beauty, this dependence could render many relationships shallow and fleeting.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the importance of deeper connections in relationships.
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.
I think we all change each other's paths. I don't know which law idea that is in physics, but I don't think any of us can live without affecting one another.
The Russians didn't invent partisan divides. The Russians haven't invented racism in the United States. But the Russians understand a lot of those divisions and they understand how to exploit them.
If you deceive someone, you lose one of life's greatest treasures, you lose the capacity to trust. Because without trust, love is not possible.
I take people very seriously. People are all I take seriously, in fact. Therefore, I have nothing but sympathy for how people behave - and nothing but laughter to console them with.
Lord, protect me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies.
It was in Cihangir that i first learned Istanbul was not an anonymous multitude of walled-in lives - a jungle of apartments where no one knew who was dead or who was celebrating what - but an archipelago of neighbourhoods in which everyone knew each other.
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