E. L. Doctorow Quotes

I don't do quagmires.

I was fortunate to not get wrapped up too hard in anything that was too dangerous.

No matter what happens to us in life, we tend to think of it as 'good' or 'bad.' And most of us tend to use the 'bad' label three to 10 times as often as the 'good' label. And when we say something is bad, the odds grow overwhelming that we will experience it as such.

Don't pessimism and caution naturally go hand in hand?

When in doubt, punt!

I have not always been a risk taker.

Maybe we should always assume the worst.

Don't go growing a conscience on me," I said. "I've been down that road. It doesn't lead you to anything good.

If at first you do succeed don't take any more chances.

There is nothing to be learned from the second kick of a mule.

Hillary Clinton has experience, but it's bad experience.

I'm not really one of these people who's been known for particularly hopeful sentiments.

There is danger in courage. Cowardice is a power for good. We hardly know what it prevents.

I assumed everything bad in the world could happen, because everything bad in the world already did happen.

The future looks a bit bleak to me.

At my time of life, one knows that the worst is usually true.

Expect the worst and that's what you'll get only it will be much worse.

How old are you? I asked her. "Old enough to know better." she said.

Gu was a worrier, a neurotic curmudgeon. If he had a headache, it was a brain tumor; if it looked like rain, this year's harvest was ruined. This was his way of controlling the situation, his lifelong strategy for always coming out ahead. Now, when reality looked more dire than any of his fatalisitic predictions, he had no choice but to turn tail and charge in the opposite direction.

People who hate trouble generally get a good deal of it.

Careful. We don't want to learn from this.

Those who understood, in fact, say: 'I mustn't do this, I mustn't do that,' so as not to commit some stupidity or other! Splendid! But at a certain point we realize that all life is stupidity; so tell me yourself what it means never to have done anything foolish. At the very least it means you have never lived.

No matter how bad you think something is, when you look into it, it's always worse.

The cat, having sat upon a hot stove lid, will not sit upon a hot stove lid again. Nor upon a cold stove lid.