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
insecure accepting uncertain
One certainty we all accept is the condition of being uncertain and insecure.
thinking people mind
People who love literature have at least part of their minds immune from indoctrination. If you read, you can learn to think for yourself.
birthday time years
The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion.
giving interviews spend-time
All I do is give interviews and spend time being photographed.
inspiring mothers-day mother
All my friends' mothers were appalling women.
nobel nobel-prize hospitals
As soon as I got the Nobel Prize my back collapsed and I was in hospital.
blair hated
I always hated Tony Blair, from the beginning.
hate iran evil-government
I hate Iran. I hate the Iranian government. It's a cruel and evil government.
hero cities london
I never thought of London in terms of possible heroes - of course, there are thousands. It's a very talented city.
mother war writing
I wanted to write about my mother as she should have been if she had not been messed up by World War I.
feminist active has-beens
I wasn't an active feminist in the '60s, never have been.
writing unhappy
I'm very unhappy when I'm not writing.
winning europe bloody
I've won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one. I'm delighted to win them all, the whole lot.
book years months
It usually takes me a year to do a book. A year or eighteen months.