E. L. Doctorow

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.

Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader - not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.

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

For example, colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Every four minutes someone is diagnosed, and every nine minutes someone dies.

You probably found 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising' in the humor section. Let's just hope that is where it belongs.

Well, I actually wrote her a letter a couple of days ago congratulating her. The tone I tried to convey in the letter is, look, you are a part of a great American historical process.