The only thing that I react really violently to is being misquoted.
Interpretation
Misrepresentation of one's words can cause strong emotional responses.
Gore Vidal emphasizes the importance of accurately representing someone's thoughts and words. Misquotation can lead to misunderstandings and distortions of one's beliefs and intentions, provoking an intense reaction from the individual whose words have been misrepresented.
In practice
During a speech against misinformation, one might reference Vidal's quote to highlight the significance of truthfulness.
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.
But then anyone who's worth anything reads just what he likes, as the mood takes him, and with extravagant enthusiasm.
Advocates of knowledge management as the next big thing have advanced the proposition that what companies need is more intellectual capital. While that is undeniably true, its only partly true. What those advocates are forgetting is that knowledge is only useful if you do something with it.
Nothing is improved by anger, unless it be the arch of a cat's back. A man with his back up is spoiling his figure. People look none the handsomer for being red in the face. It takes a great deal out of a man to get into a towering rage; it is almost as unhealthy as having a fit. . . . Whatever wrong I suffer, it can not do me half so much hurt as being angry about it.
If you limit your actions in life to things that nobody can possibly find fault with, you will not do much!
My brain surprises even me sometimes.
I never knew what to do with a paper except to put it in a side pocket or pass it to a clerk who understood it better than I did.
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