E. L. Doctorow
QuotationsLike art and politics, gangsterism is a very important avenue of assimilation into society.
I try to avoid experience if I can. Most experience is bad.
There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there’s only narrative.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
Memorable Quotations Store at Amazon
E. L. Doctorow at Amazon
MemorableQuotations.com
Memorable Quotations:
Jewish Writers of the Past
Jewish Writers of the Past
Memorable Quotations:
Irish Writers of the Past
Irish Writers of the Past
Memorable Quotations:
Famous Teachers of the Past
Famous Teachers of the Past
Memorable Quotations:
Philosophers of Western Civilization
Philosophers of Western Civilization
Memorable Quotations:
American Women Writers of the Past
American Women Writers of the Past
Memorable Quotations:
French Writers of the Past
French Writers of the Past
Memorable Quotations:
English Writers of the Past
English Writers of the Past
Memorable Quotations:
Massachusetts Writers of the Past
Massachusetts Writers of the Past
Memorable Quotations:
Humorists, Wits, and Satirists of the Past
Humorists, Wits, and Satirists of the Past
A Saigon Party:
And Other Vietnam War Short Stories
And Other Vietnam War Short Stories
Memories Are Like Clouds
Memorable Quotations: Teachers and Educators (A - H)
Memorable Quotations: Teachers and Educators (I - P)
Memorable Quotations: Teachers and Educators (Q - Z)
Memorable Quotations: Humorists, Wits, Satirists (A - H)
Memorable Quotations: Humorists, Wits, Satirists (I - P)
Memorable Quotations: Humorists, Wits, Satirists (Q - Z)
Memorable Quotations: African-American Writers
Memorable Quotations: American Democrats
Memorable Quotations: American First Ladies
Memorable Quotations: American Presidents
Memorable Quotations: American Republicans
|