The important thing is not to be too comfortable when you're writing. Noise in the street? That's good. The computer goes down? That's good. All these things are good. It has to be a little bit of a struggle. — 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
