I Must warn you, Iris, that ...

I Must warn you, Iris, that I\'m not a believer. And though I\'m sure that the revelations of other men must be a source of infinite satisfaction to them, individually, I shouldn\'t for one second be so presumptuous as to make a choice among the many thousands of recorded revelations of truth, accepting one at the expense of all the others: I might so easily choose wrong and get into eternal trouble. And you must admit that the selection is wide, and dangerous to the amateur.
I Must warn you, Iris, that I'm not a believer. And though I'm sure that the revelations of other men must be a source of infinite satisfaction to them, individually, I shouldn't for one second be so presumptuous as to make a choice among the many thousands of recorded revelations of truth, accepting one at the expense of all the others: I might so easily choose wrong and get into eternal trouble. And you must admit that the selection is wide, and dangerous to the amateur.
 Gore Vidal

Quotes from the same author

As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days.
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 Gore Vidal
The Puritans left England for America not because they couldn't be Puritans in their mother country, but because they were not allowed to force others to become Puritans; in the New World, of course, they could and did.
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 Gore Vidal
The only absolute attainment is absolute abandonment.
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 Gore Vidal
Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild.
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 Gore Vidal
Writing of history is our only heuristic principle. The Germans have a word for it, einfühlen. It is the ability to experience the past in the present and to recreate it. In my books, I have tried to recreate it in the most natural way possible: History must be integrated into the story without the weight of premonition.
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 Gore Vidal