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
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.
men conservative adventurous
Men are restless, adventurous. Women are conservative - despite what current ideology says.
war father world
My father was in the First World War.
falling-in-love fall ideas
A writer falls in love with an idea and gets carried away.
stories constructs
A story is how we construct our experiences.
color people political
When I became political and Communist, it was because they were the only people I had ever met who fought the color bar in their lives.
begging-you stealing lending
Borrowing is not much better than begging; just as lending with interest is not much better than stealing.
funny mind small-things
Small things amuse small minds.
world kind feels
I'm sure that everybody feels a kind of permanent anguish about what's going on in the world.