Gore Vidal and his literary executor Jay Parini presided over a sold-out Kaufmann Concert Hall last night. In between dead-on impersonations of Truman Capote, Katherine Hepburn, Tennessee Williams, Clark Gable, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, John Quincy Adams and Frederico Fellini, Gore left us with some memorable quotes on some memorable topics:

The New York Times: ”The New York Times has given a bad name to self love. They’re out-of-control in love with themselves. And they’re the dreariest paper on earth.”

Truman Capote: “The last time I sat on this stage, I was afflicted by a fly. An awful fly that kept buzzing around my head as I spoke [...] After a while, I realized the fly was the late Truman Capote.”

The War on Terror: “We have no war. We have acts of aggression by the president toward other countries. This is all illegal and unconstitutional.”

Conspiracy theories: “I’m not a conspiracy theorist; I’m an analyst. I analyze these things.”

Ronald Reagan: “Ronald Reagan read his speeches with a sense of discovery.”

Contemporary cinema: “Movies are suffering from the second law of thermodynamics [...] ‘39 seems to be the greatest year in the history of film. Wonderful stuff was being made. Now just stuff is being made.”

Novels: “Novels are a glorious replacement for life.”

Myra Breckinridge: “I was halfway through Myra Breckinridge before I realized she was a man.”

[Unterberg Poetry Center Reading Series]