162 Quotes by E. L. Doctorow

Satire’s nature is to be one-sided, contemptuous of ambiguity, and so unfairly selective as to find in the purity of ridicule an inarguable moral truth.

I like commas. I detest semi-colons – I don’t think they belong in a story. And I gave up quotation marks long ago. I found I didn’t need them, they were fly-specks on the page.

Longing, the hope for fulfillment, is the one unwavering passion of the world’s commerce.

I’ve always felt, as a writer, that radicals are fascinating because they’re relations, they have a place in the American family. They’re the relatives everyone wishes would go away. They’re the embarrassments to decorum and good taste.

Like art and politics, gangsterism is a very important avenue of assimilation into society.

Communists have no respect for people, only for positions.

The voice of the Constitution is the inescapably solemn self-consciousness of the people giving the law unto themselves.

When you’re working well, you don’t do research. Whatever you need comes to you.

The philosophical conservative is someone willing to pay the price of other people s suffering for his principles.