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Whenever citizens are seen routinely as enemies of their own government, writers are rountinely seen to be the most dangerous enemies.
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
Whenever
Writers
Citizens
Dangerous
Enemy
Seen
Government
Routinely
Enemies
More quotes by E. L. Doctorow
I worry about images. Images are what things mean.
E. L. Doctorow
The voice of the Constitution is the inescapably solemn self-consciousness of the people giving the law unto themselves.
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
We are able to walk on air, but only as long as our illusion supports us.
E. L. Doctorow
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
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
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
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
Someone dying asks if there is life after death. Yes, comes the answer, only not yours.
E. L. Doctorow
The three most important documents a free society gives are a birth certificate, a passport, and a library card.
E. L. Doctorow
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
We're always attracted to the edges of what we are, out by the edges where it's a little raw and nervy.
E. L. Doctorow
Time seems to me a drift, a shifting of sand. And my mind is shifting with it. I am wearing away.
E. L. Doctorow
Every major work of art is a transgression, but the artist is not necessarily, by nature, a transgressor.
E. L. Doctorow
The act of composition is a series of discoveries.
E. L. Doctorow
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
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
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
The Shadow had no imagination. He neither looked at naked women nor thought of ridding the world of dictators like Hitler or Mussolini.
E. L. Doctorow
When I'm writing, I like to seal everything off and face the wall, not to look outside the window. The only way out is through the sentences.
E. L. Doctorow
