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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

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E. L. Doctorow
Age: 84 †
Born: 1931
Born: January 6
Died: 2015
Died: July 21
Author
Essayist
Faculty Member
Novelist
Playwright
Professor
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
New York City
New York
Edgar Laurence Doctorow
Edgar Lawrence Doctorow
Think
Products
Thinking
Generations
People
Present
Anew
History
Writes
Ends
Myth
Truth
Product
Writing
Historical
Every
Generation

More quotes by E. L. Doctorow

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I am often asked the question How can the masses permit themselves to be exploited by the few. The answer is By being persuaded to identify with them.
E. L. Doctorow
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Because like all whores you value propriety. You are creature of capitalism, the ethics of which are so totally corrupt and hypocritical that your beauty is no more than the beauty of gold, which is to say false and cold and useless.
E. L. Doctorow
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Someone dying asks if there is life after death. Yes, comes the answer, only not yours.
E. L. Doctorow
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I thought I would lose, so I didn't prepare a speech.
E. L. Doctorow
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Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing - none of that is writing. Writing is writing. Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
E. L. Doctorow
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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
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The poem is a cry of the unborn heart. Yes, because the poem perfectly embodies the world, there is no world without poem.
E. L. Doctorow
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Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader - not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.
E. L. Doctorow
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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.
E. L. Doctorow
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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
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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
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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
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I did have a feeling then that the culture of factuality was so dominating that storytelling had lost all its authority.
E. L. Doctorow
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I've known several cases of writers who decide to write about something and they research the hell out of it and when they're ready to write, they can't move because they are so burdened. I start writing. Whatever I need somehow comes to hand.
E. L. Doctorow
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The theory of the teacher with all these immigrant kids was that if you spoke English loudly enough they would eventually understand.
E. L. Doctorow
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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
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Dad is always hiding in his book.
E. L. Doctorow
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If you feel a bump on page one hundred, it may be you went off on page fifty.
E. L. Doctorow
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I am telling you what I know—words have music and if you are a musician you will write to hear them.
E. L. Doctorow
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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