“There was a time when young people respected learning and literature and now they don't.”
Learning
“September 11 was terrible but, if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible.”
HistoryAll Quotes by Doris Lessing
“Men are restless, adventurous. Women are conservative - despite what current ideology says.”
Women“My father was in the First World War.”
War“I do not think that marriage is one of my talents. I've been much happier unmarried than married.”
Marriage“I think a lot of romanticizing has gone on with the women's movement.”
Women“What the feminists want of me is something they haven't examined because it comes from religion. They want me to bear witness.”
Religion“You cannot escape the fact that women mould your first five years, whether you like it or not. And I can't say I do like it very much.”
Women“I wanted to highlight that whole dreadful process in book publishing that 'nothing succeeds like success.'”
Success“Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.”
Science“When there's a war, people get married.”
War“I think kids ought to travel. I think it's very good to carry kids around. It's good for them. Of course it's tough on the parents.”
Travel“I don't think that the feminist movement has done much for the characters of women.”
Women“What really fascinates me is this need that is so strong now that if you read a work of the imagination you instantly have to say, 'Oh, what this really is is so-and-so,' reducing it to a simple formula.”
Imagination“When you're young you think that you're going to sail into a lovely lake of quietude and peace. This is profoundly untrue.”
Peace“We use our parents like recurring dreams, to be entered into when needed.”
Dreams“In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.”
Learning“That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way.”
Learning“There's an unconscious bias in our society: girls are wonderful boys are terrible. And to be a boy, or young man, growing up, having to listen to all this, it must be painful.”
Society“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.”
Truth“Our society is dependent on some precarious mechanisms, and they are very dicey. They can easily collapse.”
Society