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E.L. Doctorow Quotes

Edgar Lawrence Doctorow was an American novelist, editor, and professor, best known internationally for his works of historical fiction. He has been described as one of the most important American novelists of the 20th century.

He wrote twelve novels, three volumes of short fiction and a stage drama. They included the award-winning novels Ragtime , Billy Bathgate , and The March . These, like many of his other works, placed fictional characters in recognizable historical contexts, with known historical figures, and often used different narrative styles. His stories were recognized for their originality and versatility, and Doctorow was praised for his audacity and imagination.A number of Doctorow's novels were also adapted for the screen, including Welcome to Hard Times starring Henry Fonda, Daniel starring Timothy Hutton, Billy Bathgate starring Dustin Hoffman, and Wakefield starring Bryan Cranston. His most notable adaptations were for the film Ragtime and the Broadway musical of the same name , which won four Tony Awards.

Doctorow was the recipient of numerous writing awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for Ragtime, National Book Critics Circle Award for Billy Bathgate, National Book Critics Circle Award for The March, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Fiction. Former President Barack Obama called him "one of America's greatest novelists". Wikipedia  

✵ 6. January 1931 – 21. July 2015
E.L. Doctorow photo

Works

Ragtime
Ragtime
E.L. Doctorow
Billy Bathgate
Billy Bathgate
E.L. Doctorow
Homer & Langley
Homer & Langley
E.L. Doctorow
Ragtime
Ragtime
E.L. Doctorow
Billy Bathgate
Billy Bathgate
E.L. Doctorow
Homer & Langley
Homer & Langley
E.L. Doctorow
E.L. Doctorow: 25 quotes2 likes

Famous E.L. Doctorow Quotes

“A novelist is a person who lives in other people's skins.”

E.L. Doctorow

“It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

E.L. Doctorow

On his writing style
Interview in Writers at Work (1988)
Variant: 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.
Source: Writers At Work: The Paris Review Interviews

“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

“We are all good friends. Friendship is what endures. Shared ideals, respect for the whole character of a human being.”

E.L. Doctorow Ragtime

Source: Ragtime

“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

“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.”

E.L. Doctorow

Interview in Writers at Work (1988)

E.L. Doctorow Quotes about people

“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

Interview in Writers at Work (1988)

“Murders are exciting and lift people into a heart-beating awe as religion is supposed to do, after seeing one in the street young couples will go back to bed and make love, people will cross themselves and thank God for the gift of their stuporous lives, old folks will talk to each other over cups of hot water with lemon because murders are enlivened sermons to be analyzed and considered and relished, they speak to the timid of the dangers of rebellion, murders are perceived as momentary descents of God and so provide joy and hope and righteous satisfaction to parishioners, who will talk about them for years afterward to anyone who will listen.”

E.L. Doctorow book Billy Bathgate

Billy Bathgate (1989), Ch. 19

“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

Interview in Writers at Work (1988)

E.L. Doctorow Quotes

“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

“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.”

E.L. Doctorow

The New York Times (20 October 1985)

“Planning to write is not writing. Outlining... researching... talking to people about what you’re doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.”

E.L. Doctorow

The New York Times (20 October 1985)

“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

“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 Ragtime

Source: Ragtime

“It was evident to him that the world composed and recomposed itself constantly in an endless process of dissatisfaction.”

E.L. Doctorow Ragtime

Source: Ragtime

“Stories distribute the suffering so that it can be borne.”

E.L. Doctorow

“Like art and politics, gangsterism is a very important avenue of assimilation into society.”

E.L. Doctorow

International Herald Tribune (1 October 1990)

“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

Interview in Writers at Work (1988)

“The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.”

E.L. Doctorow

Time (26 June 2006)

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

E.L. Doctorow

Interview in Writers at Work (1988)

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

E.L. Doctorow

New York Times Book Review (27 January 1988)

“You can’t remember sex. You can remember the fact of it, and recall the setting, and even the details, but the sex of the sex cannot be remembered, the substantive truth of it, it is by nature self-erasing, you can remember its anatomy and be left with a judgment as to the degree of your liking of it, but whatever it is as a splurge of being, as a loss, as a charge of the conviction of love stopping your heart like your execution, there is no memory of it in the brain, only the deduction that it happened and that time passed, leaving you with a silhouette that you want to fill in again.”

E.L. Doctorow book Billy Bathgate

Billy Bathgate (1989), Ch. 16

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