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

— E. L. Doctorow

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More quotes by E. L. Doctorow

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

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

The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining ...researching ...talking to people about what you’re doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.

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.

Interview in Writers at Work (1988)

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Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

Albert Einstein

Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

Mao Zedong

Three-fourths of the Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state.

Benito Mussolini

Fear and destructiveness are the major emotional sources of fascism, eros belongs mainly to democracy.

Theodor Adorno The Authoritarian Personality (1950)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: E. L. Doctorow (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.