E. L. Doctorow quotes - page 2

Murders are exciting and lift people into a heart-beating awe as religion is supposed to do, after seeing one in the street young couples will go back to bed and make love, people will cross themselves and thank God for the gift of their stuporous lives, old folks will talk to each other over cups of hot water with lemon because murders are enlivened sermons to be analyzed and considered and relished, they speak to the timid of the dangers of rebellion, murders are perceived as momentary descents of God and so provide joy and hope and righteous satisfaction to parishioners, who will talk about them for years afterward to anyone who will listen. (E. L. Doctorow)
I did have a feeling then that the culture of factuality was so dominating that storytelling had lost all its authority. View quote
E. L. Doctorow
One of the things I had to learn as a writer was to trust the act of writing. To put myself in the position of writing to find out what I was writing. View quote
E. L. Doctorow
Planning to write is not writing. View quote
E. L. Doctorow
Movies are too literal. View quote
E. L. Doctorow
A new reader shouldn't be able to find you in your work, though someone who's read more may begin to. View quote
E. L. Doctorow
One of the things I had to learn as a writer was to trust the act of writing. To put myself in the position of writing to find out what I was writing. I did that with 'World's Fair' as with all of them. The inventions of the book come as discoveries. View quote
E. L. Doctorow
Congress is so beholden to the money that any solution in the general interest will be frustrated and subverted by the corporate interests who feel they will be damaged by progress, fair play and justice. View quote
E. L. Doctorow
Writing is immensely difficult. The short forms especially. View quote
E. L. Doctorow
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. View quote
E. L. Doctorow
When I'm writing, I like to seal everything off and face the wall, not to look outside the window. The only way out is through the sentences. (E. L. Doctorow)
Things that appear on the front page of the newspaper as 'fact' are far more dangerous than the games played by a novelist, and can lead to wars. View quote
E. L. Doctorow
I like commas. I detest semi-colons - I don't think they belong in a story. And I gave up quotation marks long ago. I found I didn't need them, they were fly-specks on the page. View quote
E. L. Doctorow
I thought I would lose, so I didn't prepare a speech. View quote
E. L. Doctorow
When you're working well, you don't do research. Whatever you need comes to you. View quote
E. L. Doctorow