You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can see the whole trip that way. E. L. Doctorow More Quotes by E. L. Doctorow More Quotes From E. L. Doctorow I thought I would lose, so I didn't prepare a speech. E. L. Doctorow loses speech 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 harry-truman government country There are moments when I cannot bear this unremitting consciousness. It knows only itself. Awake, I am in a continuum with my dreams. I feel my typewriters, my table, my chair to have that assurance of a solid world, where things take up space, where is not the endless emptiness of insubstantial thought that leads to nowhere but itself. My memories pale as I prevail upon them again and again. They become more and more ghostly. I fear nothing so much as losing them altogether and having only my blank endless mind to live in. E. L. Doctorow typewriters dream memories Every major work of art is a transgression, but the artist is not necessarily, by nature, a transgressor. E. L. Doctorow transgression majors art Banks and churches and courtrooms all depend on the appurtenances of theatre. On illusion. Banks, the illusion of stability and honourable dealings to the rot and corruption of capitalist exploitation. Churches the illusion of sacred sanctuary of purposes of pacifying social discontent. Courtrooms of course designed to promote the illusion of solemn justice. If there was true justice why would such trappings be necessary? Wouldn't a table and chairs and an ordinary room serve just as well? E. L. Doctorow tables-and-chairs church justice Anyone at any age is able to tell the story of his or her life with authority. E. L. Doctorow able age stories Stories distribute the suffering so that it can be borne. E. L. Doctorow suffering stories Someone dying asks if there is life after death. Yes, comes the answer, only not yours. E. L. Doctorow life-after-death dying answers There is music in words, and it can be heard you know, by thinking. E. L. Doctorow reflection heard thinking 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 satire moral purity The difference between Socrates and Jesus is that no one had ever been put to death in Socrates' name. And that is because Socrates' ideas were never made law. Law, in whatever name, protects privilege. E. L. Doctorow law names jesus 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 We are all good friends. Friendship is what endures. Shared ideals, respect for the whole character of a human being. E. L. Doctorow endure good-friend character It was evident to him that the world composed and recomposed itself constantly in an endless process of dissatisfaction. E. L. Doctorow ragtime process world 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 vacuums scary writing 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 bookstores clerks hands Like art and politics, gangsterism is a very important avenue of assimilation into society. E. L. Doctorow fifth-avenue important art Time seems to me a drift, a shifting of sand. And my mind is shifting with it. I am wearing away. E. L. Doctorow shifting mind time There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative. E. L. Doctorow fiction-and-nonfiction narrative fiction Most people are quiet in the world, and live in it tentatively, as if it were not their own. E. L. Doctorow quiet people world
