“Sometimes I think what I write is funny in its quiet way.”
Funny
“When there's a war, people get married.”
WarAll Quotes by Doris Lessing
“September 11 was terrible but, if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible.”
History“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“Men are restless, adventurous. Women are conservative - despite what current ideology says.”
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“There is only one real sin and that is to persuade oneself that the second best is anything but second best.”
Best“What society doesn't realize is that in the past, ordinary people respected learning. They respected books, and they don't now, or not very much. That whole respect for serious literature and learning has disappeared.”
Learning“My father was in the First World War.”
War“For the last third of life there remains only work. It alone is always stimulating, rejuvenating, exciting and satisfying.”
Alone“Our society is dependent on some precarious mechanisms, and they are very dicey. They can easily collapse.”
Society“I wanted to highlight that whole dreadful process in book publishing that 'nothing succeeds like success.'”
Success“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“Trust no friend without faults, and love a woman, but no angel.”
Trust“It's lovely to have money to give away - that's the bonus of winning the Nobel.”
Money“That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way.”
Learning“There was a time when young people respected learning and literature and now they don't.”
Learning“I wanted to write about my mother as she should have been if she had not been messed up by World War I.”
War“I do not think that marriage is one of my talents. I've been much happier unmarried than married.”
Marriage“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.”
Age“It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.”
Truth