What's on iconoclastic writer Gore Vidal's mind these days? Oh just everything! Like: "You hear all this whining going on, 'Where are our great writers?' The thing I might feel doleful about is: Where are the readers?" And: "Everything's wrong on Wikipedia." Plus: "I've developed a total loathing for McCain, conceited little asshole. And he thinks he's wonderful. I mean, you can just tell, this little simper of self-love that he does all the time. You just want to kick him." More of Vidal's idle musings from this month's Esquire after the jump.

  • "There was more of a flow to my output of writing in the past, certainly. Having no contemporaries left means you cannot say, 'Well, so-and-so will like this,' which you do when you're younger. You realize there is no so-and-so anymore. You are your own so-and-so. There is a bleak side to it."
  • "My general response to boarding school was: anything to get away from that fucking mother of mine. She was a monster."
  • "When I was young, I was bored shitless with being desired by others. I don't look in the mirror anymore."
  • "I lived with Howard for fifty years, but what we had was certainly not romantic love, not passionate love. And it certainly was nonsexual. Try and explain that to the fags."
  • "Nonprofit status is what created the Bible Belt. The tax code brought religion back to this country."
  • "When she was running for the Senate, Hillary's psephologists discovered that the one group that really hated her was white, middle-aged men of property. She got the whole thing immediately — I heard she said, "I remind them of their first wife." [Esquire via Hollywood-Elsewhere]