Author

Obama is a great man who's just beginning to understand the realities. And I'm not just saying that because he reads my books. I would have voted for him anyway.

From E. L. Doctorow

I try to avoid experience if I can. Most experience is bad.

From E. L. Doctorow

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

From 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.

From 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.

From E. L. Doctorow

Each book tends to have its own identity rather than the author's. It speaks from itself rather than you. Each book is unlike the others because you are not bringing the same voice to every book. I think that keeps you alive as a writer.

From E. L. Doctorow

I'm not the sort of writer who can walk into a party and take a look around, see who's sleeping with whom and go home and write a novel about society. It's not the way I work.

From E. L. Doctorow

I began to ask two questions while I was reading a book that excited me: not only what was going to happen next, but how is this done? How is it that these words on the page make me feel the way I'm feeling? This is the line of inquiry that I think happens in a child's mind, without him even knowing he has aspirations as a writer.

From 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.

From E. L. Doctorow

I did have a feeling then that the culture of factuality was so dominating that storytelling had lost all its authority.

From E. L. Doctorow

E. L. Doctorow

Notable Quotes

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