E. L. Doctorow Quotes

Most popular E. L. Doctorow Quotes

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. - E. L. Doctorow quote.
Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
— E. L. Doctorow in The Paris Review

writing

Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go. - E. L. Doctorow quote.
Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.
— E. L. Doctorow in The New York Times

writing

Books are acts of composition: you compose them. You make music: the music is called fiction. - E. L. Doctorow quote.
Books are acts of composition: you compose them. You make music: the music is called fiction.
— E. L. Doctorow in The Paris Review

fiction

Longing, the hope for fulfillment, is the is the one unwavering passion of the world's commerce. - E. L. Doctorow quote.
Longing, the hope for fulfillment, is the is the one unwavering passion of the world's commerce.
— E. L. Doctorow Jack London, Hemingway, and the Constitution
The three most important documents a free society gives are a birth certificate, a passport, and a library card. - E. L. Doctorow quote.
The three most important documents a free society gives are a birth certificate, a passport, and a library card.
— E. L. Doctorow in The New York Times

libraries

I make books for people to live in, as architects make houses. I lived in it by writing it. Now it's the reader's turn. - E. L. Doctorow quote.
I make books for people to live in, as architects make houses. I lived in it by writing it. Now it's the reader's turn.
— E. L. Doctorow in The New York Times

books why I write

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 quote.
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 in The Paris Review

novels

Writing is like driving at night.  You can see only as far as the headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. - E. L. Doctorow quote.
Writing is like driving at night.  You can see only as far as the headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
— E. L. Doctorow Vogue

writing

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 quote.
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

writing

Satire's nature is to be one-sided, contemptuous of ambiguity, and so unfairly selective as to find in the purity of ridicule an inarguable moral truth. - E. L. Doctorow quote.
Satire's nature is to be one-sided, contemptuous of ambiguity, and so unfairly selective as to find in the purity of ridicule an inarguable moral truth.
— E. L. Doctorow Creationists: Selected Essays, 1993–2006

satire

When you see a manuscript as an editor...you're at ease in the book the way a surgeon is at ease in a human chest, with all the blood and the guts and everything. - E. L. Doctorow quote.
When you see a manuscript as an editor...you're at ease in the book the way a surgeon is at ease in a human chest, with all the blood and the guts and everything.
— E. L. Doctorow in The Paris Review

editors