E. L. Doctorow Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• 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

  Truth, Writing, Thinking

  "Do EL Doctorow's novels tinker too much with the truth?" by Sam Jordison, www.theguardian.com. September 22, 2015.

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• Planning to write is not writing.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Writing, Planning

  E. L. Doctorow, Christopher D. Morris (1999). “Conversations with E.L. Doctorow”, p.9, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• I worry about images. Images are what things mean.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Mean, Worry

  E.L. Doctorow (2010). “The Book of Daniel: A Novel”, p.71, Random House

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• Anyone at any age is able to tell the story of his or her life with authority.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Age, Stories, Able

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• Uncharged with invisible meaning, the visible is nothing, mere clay; and without visible circumstance, a territory, to connect to, our spirit is shapeless, nameless, and undefined.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Clay, Purpose, Territory

  E. L. Doctorow (1994). “Jack London, Hemingway, and the Constitution: Selected Essays, 1977-1992”, Perennial

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• The Shadow had no imagination. He neither looked at naked women nor thought of ridding the world of dictators like Hitler or Mussolini.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Imagination, Shadow, Naked

  E.L. Doctorow (2010). “World's Fair: A Novel”, p.131, Random House

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• It may be that the most avid readers of new fiction in America today are film producers, an indication of the trouble were in.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Avid, America, Fiction

  E.L. Doctorow (2011). “Jack London, Hemingway, and the Constitution:: Selected Essays, 1977-1992”, p.110, Random House

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• The music of the Stones pounds the air like the amplified pulse of my erection.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Air, Pulse, Stones

  E.L. Doctorow (2010). “The Book of Daniel: A Novel”, p.6, Random House

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• Dad is always hiding in his book.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Dad, Book, Hiding

  "EL Doctorow, author of Ragtime and Billy Bathgate, dies in New York aged 84" by Nancy Groves, www.theguardian.com. July 22, 2015.

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• I thought I would lose, so I didn't prepare a speech.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Speech, Loses

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• The images of things are not the things in themselves.

  E. L. Doctorow

  E.L. Doctorow (2009). “Homer & Langley: A Novel”, p.207, Random House

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• Like art and politics, gangsterism is a very important avenue of assimilation into society.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Art, Important, Fifth Avenue

  International Herald Tribune, October 01, 1990.

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• I knew he was unreliable, but he was fun to be with. He was a child’s ideal companion, full of surprises and happy animal energy. He enjoyed food and drink. He liked to try new things. He brought home coconuts, papayas, mangoes, and urged them on our reluctant conservative selves. On Sundays he liked to discover new places, take us on endless bus or trolley rides to some new park or beach he knew about. He always counseled daring, in whatever situation, the courage to test the unknown, an instruction that was thematically in opposition to my mother’s.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Mother, Beach, Children

  E.L. Doctorow (2010). “World's Fair: A Novel”, p.15, Random House

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• I have committed many sins in my life. This precise sin-the sin against poets-is without absolution.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Sin, Poet, Committed

  E.L. Doctorow (2010). “Loon Lake: A Novel”, p.114, Random House

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• So that individuation may be compared to a pyramid in that it is only achieved by the placement of the top stone… The Jews, Ford said. They ain't like anyone else I know. There goes you theory up shits creek. He smiled.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Pyramids, May, Stones

  E.L. Doctorow (2010). “Ragtime: A Novel”, p.113, Random House

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• 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

  Hands, Clerks, Bookstores

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• A new reader shouldn't be able to find you in your work, though someone who's read more may begin to.

  E. L. Doctorow

  May, Able, Reader

  "EL Doctorow: 'I don't have a style, but the books do'" by Sarah Crown, www.theguardian.com. January 22, 2010.

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• Images break with a small ping, their destruction is as wonderful as their being, they are essentially instruments of torture exploding through the individual's calloused capacity to feel undifferentiated emotions full of longing and dissatisfaction and monumentality.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Emotion, Longing, Wonderful

  E.L. Doctorow (2010). “The Book of Daniel: A Novel”, p.71, Random House

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• Every major work of art is a transgression, but the artist is not necessarily, by nature, a transgressor.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Art, Transgression, Majors

  E.L. Doctorow (2011). “Jack London, Hemingway, and the Constitution:: Selected Essays, 1977-1992”, p.41, Random House

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• When you're working well, you don't do research. Whatever you need comes to you.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Needs, Research, Wells

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• It proposed that human beings, by the act of making witness, warranted times and places for their existence other than the time and place they were living through.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Ragtime, Existence, Witness

  E.L. Doctorow (2013). “Ragtime, The March, and Homer & Langley: Three Bestselling Novels”, p.74, Random House

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• We dress them [children] in the presumptions of the world. They are the bright small face of hope. They are the last belief we have, the belief in making them believe.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Children, Believe, Dresses

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• Movies are too literal.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Movie, Literal

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