The nature of good fiction is that it dwells in ambiguity.
E. L. DOCTOROW If we ever find out how the brain works, with all its complexity, then we will be able to build a ma...
E. L. DOCTOROW The important thing is not to be too comfortable when you're writing. Noise in the street? That&...
E. L. DOCTOROW I started on computers with 'Billy Bathgate,' a little orange screen with black letters. I t...
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 the p...
E. L. DOCTOROW I have a number of vices, one of which is moderation.
E. L. DOCTOROW I began to ask two questions while I was reading a book that excited me: not only what was going to ...
E. L. DOCTOROW History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think o...
E. L. DOCTOROW A period of time is as much an organising principle for a work of fiction as a sense of place. You c...
E. L. DOCTOROW When I'm writing, I like to seal everything off and face the wall, not to look outside the windo...
E. L. DOCTOROW The writer isn't made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because ...
E. L. DOCTOROW There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.
E. L. DOCTOROW Books are acts of composition: you compose them. You make music: the music is called fiction.
E. L. DOCTOROW I discovered Einstein said the same thing about his celebrated theories of relativity that writers s...
E. L. DOCTOROW The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.
E. L. DOCTOROW We're always attracted to the edges of what we are, out by the edges where it's a little raw...
E. L. DOCTOROW I like commas. I detest semi-colons - I don't think they belong in a story. And I gave up quotat...
E. L. DOCTOROW Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're do...
E. L. DOCTOROW I got married very early, and in no time at all, we had three children. And it seemed to me I had an...
E. L. DOCTOROW Here's how it goes: I'm up at the stroke of 10 or 10:30. I have breakfast and read the paper...
E. L. DOCTOROW There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.
E. L. DOCTOROW The writer isn't made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because we n...
E. L. DOCTOROW Like art and politics, gangsterism is a very important avenue of assimilation into society.
E. L. DOCTOROW It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the w...
E. L. DOCTOROW I try to avoid experience if I can. Most experience is bad.
E. L. DOCTOROW In the twentieth century one of the most personal relationships to have developed is that of the per...
E. L. DOCTOROW Murders are exciting and lift people into a heart-beating awe as religion is supposed to do, after s...
E. L. DOCTOROW You can't remember sex. You can remember the fact of it, and recall the setting, and even the detail...
E. L. DOCTOROW Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
E. L. DOCTOROW Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.
E. L. DOCTOROW It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make t...
E. L. DOCTOROW Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader - not the fact that it is raining, but the...
E. L. DOCTOROW Washington is designed not to solve problems. Congress is so beholden to the money that any solution...
E. L. DOCTOROW Congress is so beholden to the money that any solution in the general interest will be frustrated an...
E. L. DOCTOROW Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can...
E. L. DOCTOROW I don't think anything I've written has been done in under six or eight drafts. Usually it t...
E. L. DOCTOROW In the twentieth century one of the most personal relationships to have developed is that of the per...
E. L. DOCTOROW Suffering isn't a moral endowment. People don't always do well under duress, and it seemed t...
E. L. DOCTOROW If the people raise a howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not ...
E. L. DOCTOROW We dress them [children] in the presumptions of the world. They are the bright small face of hope. T...
E. L. DOCTOROW Not really, ... There is no Carl. I made him up.
E. L. DOCTOROW So what this is is a 'road novel.' Eventually entire civilization (in the South) had been uprooted a...
E. L. DOCTOROW The wretched war had destroyed not only their country but all their presumptions of human self-regar...
E. L. DOCTOROW For some reason that excited me.
E. L. DOCTOROW History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as...
E. L. DOCTOROW Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a...
E. L. DOCTOROW Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing,...
E. L. DOCTOROW We're always attracted to the edges of what we are, out by the edges where it's a little raw and ner...
E. L. DOCTOROW The thing about this march is it was totally different than the rest of the war, as bloody and bruta...
E. L. DOCTOROW He was a brilliant man, a complex man. The march justified him as a military man, but he had a great...
E. L. DOCTOROW You could go for miles without seeing an end to the procession of troops and horses and wagons, ... ...
E. L. DOCTOROW You can't do that to Carl.
E. L. DOCTOROW It seemed to me so much more sensible to make something up than go through the tedious business of i...
E. L. DOCTOROW I can walk into a bookstore and hand over my credit card and they don't know who the hell I am. Mayb...
E. L. DOCTOROW I don't see any point in making a big fuss about it.  I just said, 'No, thank you.'
E. L. DOCTOROW My father was the proprietor of a music shop on Forty-third Street, where many of the finest perform...
E. L. DOCTOROW I like to think of myself as an unmediated novelist - or perhaps a national novelist.
E. L. DOCTOROW Movies are too literal.
E. L. DOCTOROW I did have a feeling then that the culture of factuality was so dominating that storytelling had los...
E. L. DOCTOROW Things that appear on the front page of the newspaper as 'fact' are far more dangerous than ...
E. L. DOCTOROW I'm not the sort of writer who can walk into a party and take a look around, see who's sleep...
E. L. DOCTOROW A new reader shouldn't be able to find you in your work, though someone who's read more may ...
E. L. DOCTOROW My theory about why Hemingway killed himself is that he heard his own voice; that he reached the poi...
E. L. DOCTOROW Each book tends to have its own identity rather than the author's. It speaks from itself rather ...
E. L. DOCTOROW Writing is immensely difficult. The short forms especially.
E. L. DOCTOROW I can walk into a bookstore and hand over my credit card and they don't know who the hell I am. ...
E. L. DOCTOROW Obama is a great man who's just beginning to understand the realities. And I'm not just sayi...
E. L. DOCTOROW I get intrigued by a first lin and I write to find out why it means something to me. You make discov...
E. L. DOCTOROW There are two books that impressed me when I was very young. One was 'The Adventures of Augie Ma...
E. L. DOCTOROW Somewhere along the line the rhythms and tonalities of music elided in my brain with the sounds that...
E. L. DOCTOROW I thought I would lose, so I didn't prepare a speech.
E. L. DOCTOROW In fiction, you know, there are no borders. You can go anywhere.
E. L. DOCTOROW When you're working well, you don't do research. Whatever you need comes to you.
E. L. DOCTOROW To have the regard of one's peers is immensely moving.
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 I've outlasted many marriages at Random House.
E. L. DOCTOROW People come out of the mid-west and go to the Ivy League. I kind of reversed the direction.
E. L. DOCTOROW My books start almost before I realise it. Once in a while, some accident causes an idea to rise to ...
E. L. DOCTOROW From my undergraduate days, I've always been interested in the major philosophical questions tha...
E. L. DOCTOROW The essential problems remain the same... The kids I write about are asking for the same things I wa...
E. L. KONIGSBURG When I began writing in the mid-1960s, I thought it was not important for readers to know whether I ...
E. L. KONIGSBURG Readers let me know that they like books that have more to them than meets the eye. Had they not let...
E. L. KONIGSBURG After I won the Newbery Medal for 'From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,' ch...
E. L. KONIGSBURG Characters are so important to a story that they actually decide where the story is going. When I wr...
E. L. KONIGSBURG I was the first one in my family to go away to college. I came from a small town where there was no ...
E. L. KONIGSBURG I get ideas for my books from people I know and what happens to them, from places I've been and ...
E. L. KONIGSBURG Art comes from a visceral need and is usually generated by something I have seen; writing comes from...
E. L. KONIGSBURG I think most of us are outsiders. And I think that's good because it makes you question things.
E. L. KONIGSBURG I was born in New York City. But my family moved when I was still an infant. Except for a year and h...
E. L. KONIGSBURG When I was in college at Carnegie Mellon, I wanted to be a chemist. So I became one. I worked in a l...
E. L. KONIGSBURG Growing up in a small town gives you two things: a sense of place and a feeling of self-consciousnes...
E. L. KONIGSBURG I never set out to do this - getting to No. 1 in the 'New York Times' bestseller list wasn&#...
E. L. JAMES I'm a bit of a control freak.
E. L. JAMES Yes, I'm a 'Twi-hard.' I became obsessed. Absolutely obsessed. I didn't watch televi...
E. L. JAMES I see myself as a story teller.
E. L. JAMES I hate having my photograph taken.
E. L. JAMES Everyone's clamoring for the fourth book in the 'Fifty Shades' trilogy, which makes me l...
E. L. JAMES I've worked in television all my life, but really I've always wanted to work in the movies.
E. L. JAMES I don't watch much British television at all. I mean, it's ironic because I used to work in ...
E. L. JAMES If you've been married for 400 years, as I have, it's nice to experience first love again an...
E. L. JAMES I've set the bar quite high in terms of storytelling.
E. L. JAMES I think women love to read love stories.
E. L. JAMES I'm looking forward to getting back to my house and my Ugg boots and not washing sometimes, and ...
E. L. JAMES I'm not a great writer.
E. L. JAMES I came up with a story and I wrote it.
E. L. JAMES Once you're in charge of your job, your house, your children, getting the food on the table, doi...
E. L. JAMES All a writer wants is to be read, and people are so flattering and lovely. I mean, there are witches...
E. L. JAMES Write for yourself. That's it. And write every day.
E. L. JAMES God forbid that women have fantasies.
E. L. JAMES I really like clever men who challenge you.
E. L. JAMES Women basically want the same thing - a good passionate story, a great fantasy - and for our partner...
E. L. JAMES I value my anonymity. I'm happy to come in on the tube or the train and watch other people readi...
E. L. JAMES I think women love a passionate love story.
E. L. JAMES Often the search proves more profitable than the goal.
E. L. KONIGSBURG The true greatness of a nation is not measured by the vastness of its territory, or by the multitude...
L. E. BLAZE I think it's important to experience kindness so that you can experience it more in the future. ...
E. L. KONIGSBURG Often the search proves more profitable than the goal.
E. L. KONIGSBURG If Dr. [John A. T.] Robinson is right in saying that "God is teaching us that we must live as men wh...
E. L. MASCALL Commemoration of Eglantine Jebb, Social Reformer, Founder of 'Save the Children', 1928 I do not w...
E. L. MASCALL Enough has... been said to show that the impoverished secularized versions of Christianity which are...
E. L. MASCALL Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord to the Virgin Mary Even the most traditional theologian wil...
E. L. MASCALL Continuing a short series on topics of Christian apologetics: In the rare cases where faith appea...
E. L. MASCALL Continuing a short series on topics of Christian apologetics: The critical scholar is not committe...
E. L. MASCALL Beginning a short series on topics of Christian apologetics: If we are prepared to admit, even as ...
E. L. MASCALL Feast of Mark the Evangelist There are, of course, interesting questions that can be asked about t...
E. L. MASCALL Getting an idea should be like sitting down on a pin. It should make you jump up and do something.
E. L. SIMPSON As the majestic pearl is formed inside a clam through much irritation, so are you being formed throu...
E. L. MCDOWELL Making decisions in anger is like spitting in the wind; it comes back and hits you in the face.
E. L. MCDOWELL Struggles are really opportunities for your next level.
E. L. MCDOWELL Boredom is the result of lacking focus.
E. L. MCDOWELL Prosperity is a mindset.
E. L. MCDOWELL The greatest challenge man will face is himself.
E. L. MCDOWELL State of mind determines destination.
E. L. MCDOWELL Take nothing or no one for granted, for what is predictable today will one day become unpredictable ...
E. L. MCDOWELL Build a man's ego and you'll win his favor; crush a man's ego and you'll receive much grief from him...
E. L. MCDOWELL Time is an advocate for truth.
E. L. MCDOWELL Antagonists come with all life progression.
E. L. MCDOWELL Closed doors present other opportunities!
E. L. MCDOWELL Existence is the greatest opportunity one can have; so why settle for a mediocre state of being?
E. L. MCDOWELL You were my marital bliss,” he said to me this morning. “You can be again!” You know what I an...
E. L. NEVE The movie that changed my life,' he liked to say, by which he meant that it had changed his wardrobe...
E. L. NEVE If you stare at someone long enough, they'll eventually look back at you.
CORY DOCTOROW Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
E.L. DOCTOROW He had them as spellbound as a room full of Ewoks listening to C-3PO.
CORY DOCTOROW This is why I loved technology: if you used it right, it could give you power and privacy.
CORY DOCTOROW Satire's nature is to be one-sided, contemptuous of ambiguity, and so unfairly selective as to find ...
E.L. DOCTOROW my problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity
CORY DOCTOROW It's hard not to like Asimov; he's a really likable guy.
CORY DOCTOROW The other one I did was 'I, Robot.' I take apart Isaac Asimov's Robots world.
CORY DOCTOROW Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time-rich and cash-poor.
CORY DOCTOROW Put simply, I want to treat my readers as partners and not crooks. There is no future in calling you...
CORY DOCTOROW No one should do a job he can do in his sleep.
CORY DOCTOROW It's not necessarily about what career you pick. It's about how you do what you do.
CORY DOCTOROW Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time rich and cash poor.
CORY DOCTOROW Abnormal is so common, it's practically normal.
CORY DOCTOROW Engineers are all basically high-functioning autistics who have no idea how normal people do stuff.
CORY DOCTOROW All secrets are deep. All secrets become dark. That's in the nature of secrets.
CORY DOCTOROW It's a story of little girls who are pressed into working in sweat shops in games, who spend all...
CORY DOCTOROW This seemed insanely limiting. So ... Yahoo tells me to deliberately keep a large number of users fr...
CORY DOCTOROW The EU and the world are experiencing a revolution in creativity thanks to the Internet, ... An enti...
CORY DOCTOROW Finally, in the short term it's really obvious. People need to hear about my book, and if they've fo...
CORY DOCTOROW [Has it been a success though, I ask.] I don't know, ... I don't have another first novel that wasn'...
CORY DOCTOROW is it any different to loaning a book to someone? There was a book in the US ( Secrets of the Ya Ya ...
CORY DOCTOROW There are people already sharing eBooks out there, ... and they do it simply because they love books...
CORY DOCTOROW Previously, such jottings might have been kept in the author's notebook but something amazing happen...
CORY DOCTOROW This is a fascinating phenomenon that evolved through the unexpected use of technology. It classical...
CORY DOCTOROW DRM is already widely deployed without a hint of success and the NAVSHP group has the opportunity to...
CORY DOCTOROW There is music in words, and it can be heard you know, by thinking.
E.L. DOCTOROW – Here, take this. It'll give you a boost.
– You spent 90 gold on this??
– 90 gold...
CORY DOCTOROW YA doesn't get librarians fired!
CORY DOCTOROW Every good thing comes to some kind of end, and then the really good things come to a beginning agai...
CORY DOCTOROW Funny, for all surveillance, Osama bin Laden is still free—and we're not. Guess who's winning the "...
CORY DOCTOROW The difference between Socrates and Jesus is that no one had ever been put to death in Socrates' nam...
E.L. DOCTOROW Blooks differ from books in several ways
CORY DOCTOROW If I am going to be a writer, earning a living in the era of digital text, I need to understand wher...
CORY DOCTOROW There are answers that cover the short, medium and long term. Everyone needs to realise that the thi...
CORY DOCTOROW Blogs encourage their authors to publish in small, partially formed chunks,
CORY DOCTOROW But this is just the start of something much bigger.
CORY DOCTOROW What little empirical evidence is out there points to eBooks and free downloading increases sales on...
CORY DOCTOROW What petulant jerks. Look, Sony, you got caught sleazing your customers' computers. Telling us that ...
CORY DOCTOROW It does the thing that all great non-fiction needs to do — makes a subject interesting because of ...
CORY DOCTOROW And it is promotion. My publisher, Tor Books, have some modern methods that allow them to make a pro...
CORY DOCTOROW if I want to enable my readers push copies to their friends, and they're in circles like Slashdot, W...
CORY DOCTOROW [What is the new is the creative process involved in producing a blook.] Blogs encourage their autho...
CORY DOCTOROW Every telecomm company is as big a corporate welfare bum as you could ask for. Try to imagine what i...
CORY DOCTOROW I had this really great amazing thing happen where I almost finished the book and I really needed to...
CORY DOCTOROW Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can...
E.L. DOCTOROW I watched bulls bred to cows, watched mares foal, I saw life come from the egg and the multiplicativ...
E.L. DOCTOROW It's our goddamed city! It's our goddamed country. No terrorist can take it from us for so long as w...
CORY DOCTOROW Most of the people you see going to work today are LARPing (live-action role playing) an incredibly ...
CORY DOCTOROW the problem with reading off a screen isn’t resolution, eyestrain, or compatibility with reading i...
CORY DOCTOROW Face-book has all the social graces of a nose-picking, hyperactive six-year-old, standing at the thr...
CORY DOCTOROW What if I got hit by lightning while walking with an umbrella? Ban umbrellas! Fight the menace of li...
CORY DOCTOROW If you've never programmed a computer, you should. There's nothing like it in the whole world. When ...
CORY DOCTOROW ... the Kindle is a "roach motel" device: its license terms and DRM ensure that books can check in, ...
CORY DOCTOROW And that's the real reason the powerful fear open systems and networks. If anyone can set up a free ...
CORY DOCTOROW The US traded its manufacturing sector’s health for its entertainment industry, hoping that Police...
CORY DOCTOROW I think we should permanently cut off the internet access of any company that sends out three errone...
CORY DOCTOROW Stories are propaganda, virii that slide past your critical immune system and insert themselves dire...
CORY DOCTOROW She's some kind of Socialist-anarchist-anarcho-syndicalist-Communist. Unless you're one of them you ...
E.L. DOCTOROW