Doris Lessing Quotes
Quotes to Explore
-
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.
-
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.
-
I don't play anymore, because I know I'm not going to be a pro golfer. So there's no reason to golf.
-
To my real estate agent, Chernobyl is a fixer-upper.
-
He who improves an opportunity sows a seed which will yield fruit in opportunity for himself and others.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Singing in Yiddish was a great thrill for me and came about through Joe Papp, the founder of The Public Theater.
-
Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.
-
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.
-
Spiritual practice should not be confused with grim duty. It is the laughter of the Dalai Lama and the wonder born with every child.
-
Sometimes, poor people don't smell too good, so love can have no nose.
-
Economic growth is important. But we cannot count on economic growth alone to fund the public education system our children need and deserve.
-
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.
-
Some of those stories in local newspapers are just as dull and boring as the stories that I get from on-line services, which are basically sort of straight news.
-
In the quiet moments, the discoveries are made.
-
I try to take each moment at a time.
-
I think the culture today is very, very different from what it was in the '60s, and I feel lucky that I grew up at a time when I had these very strong female role models.
-
If there's an incursion I don't go out of the house.
-
I think creativity is spiritual. I absolutely believe that.
-
The sight of nature fascinates, the family tie has a sweet enchantment and patriotism gives the religious spirit a fiery devotion to the powers that it reveres.
-
Small things amuse small minds.
