E. L. Doctorow Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• 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

  Government, People, Facts

  Interview in Writers at Work, 1988.

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• It is the immigrant hordes who keep this country alive, the waves of them arriving year after year.... Who believes in America more than the people who run down the gangplank and kiss the ground?

  E. L. Doctorow

  Running, Country, Believe

  E.L. Doctorow (2009). “Homer & Langley: A Novel”, p.35, Random House

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• If you feel a bump on page one hundred, it may be you went off on page fifty.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Bumps, Fifty, May

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• Communists have no respect for people, only for positions.

  E. L. Doctorow

  People, No Respect, Communist

  E.L. Doctorow (2010). “The Book of Daniel: A Novel”, p.203, Random House

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• We are all good friends. Friendship is what endures. Shared ideals, respect for the whole character of a human being.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Character, Good Friend, Endure

  E. L. Doctorow, Paul Levine (2005). “Three Screenplays”, p.218, JHU Press

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• 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.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Play, Justice, Frustrated

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• 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

  Writing, Scary, Vacuums

  Interview in "Writers at Work" (The Paris Review Interviews), 8th Series, 1988.

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• Time seems to me a drift, a shifting of sand. And my mind is shifting with it. I am wearing away.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Time, Mind, Shifting

  E.L. Doctorow (2009). “Homer & Langley: A Novel”, p.175, Random House

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• I've always felt, as a writer, that radicals are fascinating because they're relations, they have a place in the American family. They're the relatives everyone wishes would go away. They're the embarrassments to decorum and good taste.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Wish, Going Away, Radicalism

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• An Animated Cartoon Theology:
  1. People are animals.
  2. The body is mortal and subject to incredible pain.
  3. Life is antagonistic to the living.
  4. The flesh can be sawed, crushed, frozen, stretched, burned, bombed, and plucked for music.
  5. The dumb are abused by the smart and the smart destroyed by their own cunning.
  6. The small are tortured by the large and the large destroyed by their own momentum.
  7. We are able to walk on air, but only as long as our illusion supports us.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Pain, Smart, Animal

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• Poems have ideas. The ideas of poems come out of their emotions and their emotions are carried on images.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Ideas, Emotion

  E.L. Doctorow (2013). “Ragtime, The March, and Homer & Langley: Three Bestselling Novels”, p.635, Random House

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• Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. Sometimes you run over a drunk who's lain down and fallen asleep on the warm pavement. I mean, do you keep going, or what?

  E. L. Doctorow

  Running, Writing, Mean

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• Longing, the hope for fulfillment, is the one unwavering passion of the world's commerce.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Passion, World, Longing

  E.L. Doctorow (2011). “Jack London, Hemingway, and the Constitution:: Selected Essays, 1977-1992”, p.34, Random House

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• 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.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Book, Writing, Discovery

  "EL Doctorow obituary" by Eric Homberger, www.theguardian.com. July 22, 2015.

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• A writer of books has to admit that film is the enemy, and that in my case I have been sleeping with the enemy.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Book, Sleep, Enemy

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• 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.

  E. L. Doctorow

  War, Games, Novelists

  "The long view" by James Campbell, www.theguardian.com. January 14, 2006.

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• Whenever citizens are seen routinely as enemies of their own government, writers are rountinely seen to be the most dangerous enemies.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Government, Enemy, Citizens

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• There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Fiction, Narrative, Fiction And Nonfiction

  New York Times Book Review, January 27, 1988.

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• And so the ordinary unendurable torments we all experienced were indeed exceptional in the way they were absorbed in each heart.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Heart, Way, Ordinary

  E.L. Doctorow (2001). “City of God: A Novel”, p.81, Random House

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• Implications of treason are fed like cubes of sugar to the twelve-headed animal which is justice. In ... opening remarks. In the way questions are asked. In support of lines of questioning where cases of treason are cited and the Judge endorses the relevance of the citation.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Animal, Justice, Judging

  E.L. Doctorow (2010). “The Book of Daniel: A Novel”, p.201, Random House

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• The theory for admitting accomplice testimony that is uncorroborated is that conspiracy is by its nature secretive and that only the parties to it can know it occurred. But in practice this means the accomplice's guilt is modified to the degree that he can convict the defendant.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Party, Mean, Practice

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• Leo Crowley, Harry [Truman]'s Foreign Economic Administrator, tells Congressmen the theory...: 'If you create good governments in foreign countries, automatically you will have better markets for ourselves.' With that honeycunt staring you in the face, you'd forget your grammar too.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Country, Government, Harry Truman

  E.L. Doctorow (2010). “The Book of Daniel: A Novel”, p.234, Random House

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• And though the newspapers called the shooting the Crime of the Century, Goldman knew it was only 1906 and there were ninety-four years to go.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Years, Shooting, Four

  E.L. Doctorow (2010). “Ragtime: A Novel”, p.8, Random House

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• Stories distribute the suffering so that it can be borne.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Suffering, Stories

  E.L. Doctorow (2008). “Creationists: Selected Essays, 1993-2006”, p.10, Random House

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• It was evident to him that the world composed and recomposed itself constantly in an endless process of dissatisfaction.

  E. L. Doctorow

  World, Process, Ragtime

  E.L. Doctorow (2010). “Ragtime: A Novel”, p.91, Random House

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