Doris Lessing Quotes

This world is run by people who know how to do things. They know how things work. They are equipped. Up there, there's a layer of people who run everything. But we - we're just peasants. We don't understand what's going on, and we can't do anything.

Doris Lessing

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Quotes to Explore

• We must develop huge demonstrations, because the world is used to big dramatic affairs. They think in terms of hundreds of thousands and millions and billions... Billions of dollars are appropriated at the twinkling of an eye. Nothing little counts.

  

  A. Philip Randolph
  • World
  • Think
  • Eye

• I would like all French children to have unlimited opportunities opened up for them as French minister of education.

  

  Najat Vallaud-Belkacem
  • Up
  • Children
  • Education

• Sometimes I'd like to play the bad guy and sometimes I'd like to die in a movie.

  

  Jackie Chan
  • Bad
  • Movie
  • Guy

• Even though I am the daughter of a poet, and my stepmother is also a poet, growing up, I didn't think I could understand poetry; I didn't think that it had any relevance to my life, the feelings that I endured on a day-to-day basis, until I was introduced to the right poem.

  

  Natasha Trethewey
  • Life
  • Up
  • Growing

• Exigencies create the necessary ability to meet and conquer them.

  

  Wendell Phillips
  • Ability
  • Create
  • Conquer

• I write my own songs. I made my own videos. I pick my producers. Nothing goes out without my permission. It's all authentic.

  

  Lana Del Rey
  • Nothing
  • Without
  • My Own

• It's not like I've ever been the popular pretty girl at school or anything. I was always such a weirdo.

  

  Maisie Williams
  • School
  • Pretty
  • Girl

• You can keep going on and on about the interactions of people, which makes it a great drama and great event, and you'll always hold that special, but if you're looking at a baseball moment, the feeling you get when you win the World Series by far exceeds anything else in the game that you're able to do.

  

  Cal Ripken, Jr.
  • People
  • World
  • Great

• I tend to make low-budget movies but, yeah, I make more money than I ever thought I would make.

  

  Laura Linney
  • Money
  • Thought
  • Movies

• I keep endlessly busy with all kinds of stuff, mostly horses, cattle, livestock, things like that.

  

  Sam Shepard
  • Like
  • Busy
  • Cattle

• Whenever you're in a relationship, you have that favorite song that reminds you of when you first got together or when you first kissed, and then every time you hear that song, it reminds you of that person.

  

  Olly Murs
  • Time
  • Together
  • Song

• We must exchange the philosophy of excuse - what I am is beyond my control for the philosophy of responsibility.

  

  Barbara Jordan
  • Control
  • Responsibility
  • Philosophy

• Refugees are the human dimensions of a failed state.

  

  Sam Brownback
  • Human
  • Dimensions
  • Refugees

• No one is fit to judge a book until he has rounded Cape Horn in a sailing vessel, until he has bumped into two or three icebergs, until he has been lost in the sands of the desert, until he has spent a few years in the House of the Dead.

  

  Van Wyck Brooks
  • Book
  • House
  • Lost

• I come from a background where money has never been an issue.

  

  Ranbir Kapoor
  • Money
  • Never
  • Where

• Mum is the girliest of them all, but she ended up with me, the tomboy.

  

  Katarina Johnson-Thompson
  • Up
  • She
  • Me

• My parents worked in the art world. They were really supportive of my music in that they allowed me to drop out of school and move out of our home, which not many parents would do.

  

  Ed Sheeran
  • World
  • Music
  • School

• There are competing studies on how much crime drops or doesn't drop when there are strict rules on gun possession and sale. I don't think there's any question that New York City's very tough laws have reduced violence.

  

  Gail Collins
  • City
  • Question
  • Violence

• Sometimes I've felt that the industry has typecast me as a certain kind of character. But then I think all it really takes is one role, the right role, to shake that up and change that perception.

  

  David Schwimmer
  • Up
  • Character
  • Perception

• I have a condition called Menieres disease which is a problem with fluid retention in the inner ear. It has four symptoms: ringing in the ear, pressure in the ear, fluctuating hearing loss, and attacks of vertigo.

  

  Katie Leclerc

• In the years between 2000 and 2004, I always got the feeling that people were just starting to hear about me and they were all late to the game. I'd be out playing shows for records that I recorded back in 1999 that were just coming out.

  

  Ariel Pink
  • People
  • Game
  • Feeling

• Cross the wrong state border with your gun, or wake up one morning to new legislation or a new presidential executive order, and suddenly you're the bad guy, not the good guy. No wonder some gun owners seem so touchy; they feel, at some level, like criminals in waiting.

  

  Walter Kirn
  • Up
  • Good
  • Bad

• This world is run by people who know how to do things. They know how things work. They are equipped. Up there, there's a layer of people who run everything. But we - we're just peasants. We don't understand what's going on, and we can't do anything.

  

  Doris Lessing
  • People
  • Up
  • World