Doris Lessing
Doris Lessing
Doris May Lessing CHwas a British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels include The Grass is Singing, the sequence of five novels collectively called Children of Violence, The Golden Notebook, The Good Terrorist, and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos: Archives...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth22 October 1919
men ideas giving
But there is no doubt that to attempt a novel of ideas is to give oneself a handicap: the parochialism of our culture is intense. For instance, decade after decade bright young men and women emerge from their universities able to say proudly: 'Of course I know nothing about German literature.' It is the mode. The Victorians knew everything about German literature, but were able with a clear conscience not to know much about the French.
mutual-help mind different
Perhaps it is a fault of the species who thrive in peace, mutual help, aspirations for more of the same -- to forget that outside these borders dwell very different types of mind, feeding on different fuel.
country facts events
At no time, anywhere, was the population of a country told the truth: facts about events trickled into general consciousness much later, if ever.
thinking years different
If what we think now is different from what we thought then, we can take it for granted that what we think in a year will be different again.
autobiography reports interim
An interim report - that is what an autobiography is.
sticks talent capacity
What I did have, which others perhaps didn't, was a capacity for sticking at it, which really is the point, not the talent at all. You have to stick at it.
father rage
My father was always so mingled with rage at his life.
giving profit exploitation
Everyone knows that where there is something that is capable of giving profit, then exploited it will be.
eye judging people
I spend a good deal of time wondering how we will seem to the people who come after us. This is not an idle interest, but a deliberate attempt to strengthen the power of that "other eye," which we can use to judge ourselves.
television interviews looks
When I started, there were no big interviews, no television, no profiles and all that. The publishers were quite shockingly uncommercial, but they did look after their writers.
writing important care
You should write, first of all, to please yourself. You shouldn't care a damn about anybody else at all. But writing can't be a way of life - the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.
fiction records factual
I have to conclude that fiction is better at 'the truth' than a factual record,
writing law novel
There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be.
dog people one-day
If she had been left alone she would have gone on, in her own way, enjoying herself thoroughly, until people found one day that she had turned imperceptibly into one of those women who have become old without ever having been middle aged: a little withered, a little acid, hard as nails, sentimentally kindhearted, and addicted to religion or small dogs.