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Home
Authors
E. L. Doctorow
American
Author
About the author
Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake.
E. L. Doctorow,
American
Author
#Time
#People
#Writers
I try to avoid experience if I can. Most experience is bad.
E. L. Doctorow,
American
Author
#Experience
Like art and politics, gangsterism is a very important avenue of assimilation into society.
E. L. Doctorow,
American
Author
#Art
#Society
#Politics
In the twentieth century one of the most personal relationships to have developed is that of the person and the state. It's become a fact of life that governments have become very intimate with people, most always to their detriment.
E. L. Doctorow,
American
Author
#Relationships
#Life
#People
#State
#Fact
I thought I would lose, so I didn't prepare a speech.
E. L. Doctorow,
American
Author
#Thought
#Speech
I can walk into a bookstore and hand over my credit card and they don't know who the hell I am. Maybe that says something about bookstore clerks.
E. L. Doctorow,
American
Author
#Hell
#Credit
History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.
E. L. Doctorow,
American
Author
#People
#End
#History
#Present
#Myth
Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader - not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.
E. L. Doctorow,
American
Author
#Feeling
#Being
#Writing
#Fact
It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
E. L. Doctorow,
American
Author
#Car
#Night
#Driving
Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.
E. L. Doctorow,
American
Author
#People
#Writing
#Talking
#Planning
The writer isn't made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because we need witnesses to this terrifying century.
E. L. Doctorow,
American
Author
#Reason
#Writers
#Writer
Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
E. L. Doctorow,
American
Author
#Writing
Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.
E. L. Doctorow,
American
Author
#Nothing
#Writing
#Exploration
We're always attracted to the edges of what we are, out by the edges where it's a little raw and nervy.
E. L. Doctorow,
American
Author
There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.
E. L. Doctorow,
American
Author
#Fiction
Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
E. L. Doctorow,
American
Author
#Writing
#Night
#Driving