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
crime infant seeing
Hitler admired Stalin, quite properly seeing himself as a mere infant in crime compared to his great exemplar.
inspirational success opportunity
Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so.
learning memorable college
In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.
running dark night
For with my intuition I knew that this man was repeating a pattern over and over again: courting a woman with his intelligence and sympathy, claiming her emotionally; then, when she began to claim in return, running away. And the better a woman was, the sooner he would begin to run. I knew this with my intuition, and yet I sat there in my dark room, looking at the hazed wet brilliance of the purple London night sky, longing with my whole being.
real democracies-have people
Very few people really care about freedom, about liberty, about the truth, very few. Very few people have guts, the kind of guts on which a real democracy has to depend. Without people with that sort of guts a free society dies or cannot be born.
children capacity
Every child has the capacity to be everything.
children stupid understanding
It is my belief that children are full of understanding and know as much as and more than adults, until they are about seven, when they suddenly become stupid, like adults.
strong thinking civilization
This is a time when it is frightening to be alive, when it is hard to think of human beings as rational creatures. Everywhere we look we see brutality, stupidity, until it seems that there is nothing else to be seen but that--a descent into barbarism, everywhere, which we are unable to check. But I think that while it is true there is a general worsening, it is precisely because things are so frightening we become hypnotized, and do not notice--or if we notice, belittle--equally strong forces on the other side, the forces, in short, of reason, sanity and civilization.
children intelligent boring
There is nothing more boring for an intelligent woman than to spend endless amounts of time with small children.
envy moral behinds
Envy has always hidden behind moral indignation.
children immature doe
Argument does not teach children or the immature. Only time and experience does that.
years parent
You have to be grown up, really grown up, not merely in years, to understand your parents.
thank-you prayer grateful
A simple grateful thought turned heavenwards is the most perfect prayer.
people cannibal golden-notebook
People are just cannibals unless they leave each other alone.