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
worry fame posthumous
I'm not one of those writers that sits worrying about posthumous fame.
writing animal way
I write because I've always written, can't stop. I am a writing animal. The way a silk worm is a silk-producing animal.
life witty what-matters
What matters most is that we learn from living.
children lying book
Parents should leave books lying around marked ‘forbidden’ if they want their children to read.
winning giving lovely
It's lovely to have money to give away - that's the bonus of winning the Nobel.
song humanity stories
Humanity's legacy of stories and storytelling is the most precious we have. All wisdom is in our stories and songs. A story is how we construct our experiences.
jobs truth writing
There is no doubt fiction makes a better job of the truth.
giving-up writing hard-work
I don't know much about creative writing programs. But they're not telling the truth if they don't teach, one, that writing is hard work, and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer.
love hero mankind
What is a hero without love for mankind.
stars men filled-up
The world is only tolerable because of the empty places in it...when the world's filled up, we'll have to get hold of a star. Any star. Venus, or Mars. Get hold of it and leave it empty. Man needs an empty space somewhere for his spirit to rest in.
women thinking numbers
Women are the cowards they are because they have been semi-slaves for so long. The number of women prepared to stand up for what they really think, feel, experience, with a man they are in love with is still very small.
sorry children school
Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: "You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do."
numbers focus viewpoints
I am a person who continually destroys the possibilities of a future because of the numbers of alternative viewpoints I can focus on the present.
creativity thinking cases
Think wrongly if you please, but in all cases think for yourself.