A narcissist is someone better-looking than you are.

Vidal’s quip turns a clinical term into a social joke: “narcissist” becomes less a diagnosis than a label people apply out of envy or irritation. By defining the narcissist as simply “better-looking than you,” he satirizes how readily we moralize others’ confidence or attractiveness, and how accusations of vanity can mask the accuser’s insecurity. The line also fits Vidal’s broader public persona—acerbic, epigrammatic, and skeptical of pieties—using wit to expose self-serving judgments in everyday language.