Like art and politics, gangsterism is a very important avenue of assimilation into society.
—E. L. Doctorow
Topics: Criminals, Crime
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
Topics: Writers, Writing, Authors & Writing
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
Topics: Writing, Writers
Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
—E. L. Doctorow
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing, Writing
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
Topics: History
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
I try to avoid experience if I can. Most experience is bad.
—E. L. Doctorow
Topics: Experience
There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there’s only narrative.
—E. L. Doctorow
Topics: Fiction, Authors & Writing
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
Topics: Creativity
Most people are quiet in the world, and live in it tentatively, as if it were not their own.
—E. L. Doctorow
Topics: World
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- William H. Gass American Novelist
- Shana Alexander American Journalist
- A. M. Rosenthal Canadian-born American Editor
- Robin Morgan American Author
- Brenda Ueland American Journalist Memoirist
- Elie Wiesel Romanian-born American Writer
- Louise Erdrich American Author
- William Allen White American Journalist
- Heywood Broun American Journalist
- Marilyn Ferguson American Author
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