Doris Lessing Quotes
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What really fascinates me is this need that is so strong now that if you read a work of the imagination you instantly have to say, 'Oh, what this really is is so-and-so,' reducing it to a simple formula.
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When I was a girl, the idea that the British Empire could ever end was absolutely inconceivable. And it just disappeared, like all the other empires. You know, when people talk about the British Empire, they always forget that all the European countries had empires.
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You want me to begin a novel with The two women were alone in the London flat?
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I was taken around and shown things as a 'useful idiot' … that’s what my role was … I can’t understand why I was so gullible.
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What I really can't stand about the feminist revolution is that it produced some of the smuggest, most unselfcritical people the world has ever seen. They are horrible.
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It was OK, us being Reds during the war, because we were all on the same side. But then the Cold War started. Almost overnight we became enemies of people who were close friends - they crossed the street to avoid us.
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The two women were alone in the London flat. 'The point is,' said Anna, as her friend came back from the telephone on the landing, 'the point is, that as far as I can see, everything's cracking up.'
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I do have a sense, and I've never not had it, of how easily things can vanish.
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I've worked hard all my life. You have to if you want to get things done.
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I've won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one. I'm delighted to win them all, the whole lot.
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I don't write well when I'm sitting there sweating about every single phrase.
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God knows why nobody ever learns from the preceding generation - but they don't.
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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.
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I do not think writers ought ever to sit down and think they must write about some cause, or theme, or something. If they write about their own experiences, something true is going to emerge.
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I hate Iran. I hate the Iranian government. It's a cruel and evil government.
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It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.
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I see every book as a problem that you have to solve. That is what dictates the form you use. It's not that you say, 'I want to write a science fiction book.' You start from the other end, and what you have to say dictates the form of it.
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The Golden Notebook for some reason surprised people but it was no more than you would hear women say in their kitchens every day in any country. … I was really astounded that some people were shocked.
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My mother was a woman who was very frustrated. She had a great deal of ability, and all this energy went into me and my brother.
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The thing is, I haven't changed at all.
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All I do is give interviews and spend time being photographed.
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Sentimentality is intolerable because it is false feeling.
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All one's life as a young woman one is on show, a focus of attention, people notice you. You set yourself up to be noticed and admired. And then, not expecting it, you become middle-aged and anonymous. No one notices you. You achieve a wonderful freedom. It's a positive thing. You can move about unnoticed and invisible.
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It's lovely to have money to give away - that's the bonus of winning the Nobel.