Quotes by Doris Lessing

“For the last third of life there remains only work. It alone is always stimulating, rejuvenating, exciting and satisfying.”

“There's an unconscious bias in our society: girls are wonderful; boys are terrible. And to be a boy, or young man, growing up, having to listen to all this, it must be painful.”

“A public library is the most democratic thing in the world. What can be found there has undone dictators and tyrants: demagogues can persecute writers and tell them what to write as much as they li...”

“You simply don't get to be wise, mature, etc., unless you've been a raving cannibal for thirty years or so.”

“You have to read a book at the right time for you, and I am sure this cannot be insisted on too often, for it is the key to the enjoyment of literature.”

“The point is, that the function of the novel seems to be changing; it has become an outpost of journalism; we read novels for information about areas of life we dont know Nigeria, South Africa, th...”

“It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important.”

“It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.”

“Laughter is by definition healthy.”

“What matters most is that we learn from living.”

“Growing up is after all only the understanding that one's unique and incredible experience is what everyone shares.”

“That's what learning is. You suddenly understand something you understood all your life but in a new way.”

“Think wrongly if you please but in all cases think for yourself.”

“Women are the cowards they are because they have been semi-slaves for so long. The number of women prepared to stand up for what they really think feel experience with a man they are in love wit...”

“What society doesn't realize is that in the past, ordinary people respected learning. They respected books, and they don't now, or not very much. That whole respect for serious literature and learn...”

“We use our parents like recurring dreams, to be entered into when needed.”

“What's terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.”

“Listen Anna, if we don’t believe the things we put on our agendas will come true for us, then there’s no hope for us. We’re going to be saved by what we seriously put on our agendas.”

“I don’t want to be told when I wake up, terrified by a dream of total annihilation, because of the H-bomb exploding, that people felt that way about the cross-bow. It isn’t true. There is something...”

“As I was saying, that’s the dark secret of our time, no one mentions it, but every time one opens a door one is greeted by a shrill, desperate and inaudible scream.”