# Quote — Gore Vidal, United States

> World events are the work of individuals whose motives are often frivolous, even casual.

- Author: [Gore Vidal](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gore-vidal.md)
- Book: [United States](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gore-vidal/united-states.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gore_Vidal#United_States_-_Essays_1952%E2%80%931992_(1992)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/gore-vidal/united-states/world-events-are

## More from this book

> Current is also outraged by a reference to Lincoln's bowels, whose 'frequency,' he tells us, 'cannot be documented.' But, of course, they can. 'Truth-teller' Herndon tells us that Lincoln was chronically constipated and depended on a laxative called bluemass. Since saints do not have bowels, Current finds all this sacrilegious; hence 'wrong.'

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gore-vidal/united-states/current-is-also.md)

> Basler finds my Lincoln the 'phoniest historical novel I have ever had the pleasure of reading.'... Also, 'more than half the book could never have happened as told.' Unfortunately, he doesn't say which half. If I knew, we could then cut it free from the phony half and publish the result as Basler's Vidal's Lincoln.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gore-vidal/united-states/basler-finds-my-lincoln.md)

> ...American society, literary or lay, tends to be humorless. What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke?

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gore-vidal/united-states/american-society-literary.md)