My books start almost before I realise it. Once in a while, some accident causes an idea to rise to the surface… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
I like to think of myself as an unmediated novelist - or perhaps a national novelist. — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go. — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
A novel is a printed circuit through which flows the force of a reader's own life. — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
My sense of what a book should be has changed so radically. I like to think for the better. — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative. — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
I started on computers with 'Billy Bathgate,' a little orange screen with black letters. I thought it was really cool, but it… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
My theory about why Hemingway killed himself is that he heard his own voice; that he reached the point where he couldn't… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
The writer isn't made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because we need witnesses to this… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
There are two books that impressed me when I was very young. One was 'The Adventures of Augie March' - the idea… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
I get intrigued by a first lin and I write to find out why it means something to me. You make discoveries… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
One of the things I had to learn as a writer was to trust the act of writing. To put myself in… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
One of the things I had to learn as a writer was to trust the act of writing. To put myself in… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
The important thing is not to be too comfortable when you're writing. Noise in the street? That's good. The computer goes down?… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing - none of that is writing. Writing… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
I began to ask two questions while I was reading a book that excited me: not only what was going to happen… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
There is really no fiction or non-fiction; there is only narrative. One mode of perception has no greater claim on the truth… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
I thought of myself as a writer for years before I got around to writing anything. — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
It seems to me that in literature, books have always been answers to other books. — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
A writer's life is so hazardous that anything he does is bad for him. Anything that happens to him is bad: failure's… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
I am led to the proposition that there is no fiction or nonfiction as we commonly understand the distinction: there is only… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
When I'm writing, I like to seal everything off and face the wall, not to look outside the window. The only way… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
When you're writing a book, you don't really think about it critically. You don't want to know too well what you're doing.… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
Each book tends to have its own identity rather than the author's. It speaks from itself rather than you. Each book is… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
I've known several cases of writers who decide to write about something and they research the hell out of it and when… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
I'm not the sort of writer who can walk into a party and take a look around, see who's sleeping with whom… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing, none of that is writing. Writing is… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share Image
Things that appear on the front page of the newspaper as 'fact' are far more dangerous than the games played by a novelist, and… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share
There are moments when I cannot bear this unremitting consciousness. It knows only itself. Awake, I am in a continuum with my dreams. I… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share
Most people are quiet in the world, and live in it tentatively, as if it were not their own. — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share
It is the immigrant hordes who keep this country alive, the waves of them arriving year after year… Who believes in America more than… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share
I started on computers with 'Billy Bathgate,' a little orange screen with black letters. I thought it was really cool, but it actually slowed… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share
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… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share
Facts are the images of history, just as images are the facts of fiction. — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share
Uncharged with invisible meaning, the visible is nothing, mere clay; and without visible circumstance, a territory, to connect to, our spirit is shapeless, nameless,… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share
“Writing a novel is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share
I did have a feeling then that the culture of factuality was so dominating that storytelling had lost all its authority. — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share
I got married very early, and in no time at all, we had three children. And it seemed to me I had an obligation… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share
When you're writing a book, you don't really think about it critically. You don't want to know too well what you're doing. First, you… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share
A writer's life is so hazardous that anything he does is bad for him. Anything that happens to him is bad: failure's bad, success… — E. L. Doctorow Copy Share
