Whenever citizens are seen routinely as enemies of their own government, writers are rountinely seen to be the most dangerous enemies. E. L. Doctorow More Quotes by E. L. Doctorow More Quotes From E. L. Doctorow 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 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 facts people Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake. E. L. Doctorow writing book people I try to avoid experience if I can. Most experience is bad. E. L. Doctorow i-can ifs trying A novel is a printed circuit through which flows the force of a reader's own life. E. L. Doctorow force flow fiction The act of composition is a series of discoveries. E. L. Doctorow composition writing discovery I am led to the proposition that there is no fiction or nonfiction as we commonly understand the distinction: there is only narrative. E. L. Doctorow distinction narrative fiction 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. E. L. Doctorow long-ago needs thinking Facts are the images of history, just as images are the facts of fiction. E. L. Doctorow facts fiction Longing, the hope for fulfillment, is the one unwavering passion of the world's commerce. E. L. Doctorow longing passion world I lived in New York for a couple months. It seemed to me at first an incredibly clean place with well-dressed people and washed cars and bright-painted red-and-yellow streetcars and white buildings. E. L. Doctorow couple new-york yellow We make a mistake to condescend to the past as if it were preparatory to our own time. E. L. Doctorow ifs mistake past 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 judging justice animal The images of things are not the things in themselves. E. L. Doctorow And so do people pass out of one's life and all you can remember of them is their humanity, a poor fitful thing of no dominion, like your own. E. L. Doctorow dominion humanity people 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 stones may Communists have no respect for people, only for positions. E. L. Doctorow communist no-respect people The voice of the Constitution is the inescapably solemn self-consciousness of the people giving the law unto themselves. E. L. Doctorow voice self law 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 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 practice mean
