Writer Quotes by E. L. Doctorow

The nature of good fiction is that it dwells in ambiguity.

— E. L. Doctorow

Planning to write is not writing.

— E. L. Doctorow

A book begins as a private excitement of the mind.

— E. L. Doctorow

Writing is immensely difficult. The short forms especially.

— E. L. Doctorow

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

— 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…

— 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

My sense of what a book should be has changed so radically. I like to think for the better.

— E. L. Doctorow

It seems to me that in literature, books have always been answers to other books.

— E. L. Doctorow

I thought of myself as a writer for years before I got around to writing anything.

— E. L. Doctorow

A novel is a printed circuit through which flows the force of a reader's own life.

— E. L. Doctorow

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

— 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…

— 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…

— E. L. Doctorow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I like to think of myself as an unmediated novelist - or perhaps a national novelist.

— E. L. Doctorow

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are two books that impressed me when I was very young. One was 'The Adventures of Augie March' - the idea…

— E. L. Doctorow

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

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