Doris Lessing Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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I worked three and then six hours a day in my studio with strict discipline and emotion. I obtained awards usually granted to other foreigners during the end-of-year admission tests.
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When I write sad songs, I feel like I'm sewing up a scar in me, and the outcome always feels so much better than when I write happy ones.
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People should know what they want, not just what they don't want.
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I don't play anymore, because I know I'm not going to be a pro golfer. So there's no reason to golf.
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I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.
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To my real estate agent, Chernobyl is a fixer-upper.
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He who improves an opportunity sows a seed which will yield fruit in opportunity for himself and others.
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We're trying to have the band create something beautiful that hopefully one day, 20 years from now, can be picked up by a kid and hopefully have the same effect that Neil Young had on me, or Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath.
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You can't say what the outcome of a competition is going to be, so now I am ready to accept any result that comes my way, if I give my best shot.
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If you always feel like an imposter, you work harder, and that makes you better at your job. You've got to keep a level of variation; otherwise, you'll end up talking about nails and beauty products all the time.
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I don't think that my work is very moralistic - at least, I try to avoid that. I grew up with that sermonising tendency, and I don't think visual work operates like that.
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Singing in Yiddish was a great thrill for me and came about through Joe Papp, the founder of The Public Theater.
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Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
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I do take this insane pleasure in world-building. I get the world in my head, but I have to make sure everyone else gets it.
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Spiritual practice should not be confused with grim duty. It is the laughter of the Dalai Lama and the wonder born with every child.
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Sometimes, poor people don't smell too good, so love can have no nose.
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Economic growth is important. But we cannot count on economic growth alone to fund the public education system our children need and deserve.
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Writing a novel is like knocking on a door that will never open. You are so desperate to get in, you will say or do anything. You feel: please take my novel.
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Most of my thoughts, you couldn't print.
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And I wondered, not for the first time, what patriotism is, what the love of country truly consists of, how that yearning loyalty that had shaken my friend’s voice arises, and how so real a love can become, too often, so foolish and vile a bigotry. Where does it go wrong?
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If you do something that is not gags and punchlines and is character-based, where there are no jokes as such, then it all has to come from a place of truth, and I love that - I love nothing more than getting very serious about my comedy.
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I do believe in the potential of like-minded people coming together.
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Small things amuse small minds.
