“There was a time when young people respected learning and literature and now they don't.”
Learning
“All my friends' mothers were appalling women.”
WomenAll Quotes by Doris Lessing
“For the last third of life there remains only work. It alone is always stimulating, rejuvenating, exciting and satisfying.”
Alone“I hate Iran. I hate the Iranian government. It's a cruel and evil government.”
Government“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“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“That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way.”
Learning“I think a lot of romanticizing has gone on with the women's movement.”
Women“Men are restless, adventurous. Women are conservative - despite what current ideology says.”
Women“All my friends' mothers were appalling women.”
Women“I wanted to write about my mother as she should have been if she had not been messed up by World War I.”
War“When there's a war, people get married.”
War“I do not think that marriage is one of my talents. I've been much happier unmarried than married.”
Marriage“What the feminists want of me is something they haven't examined because it comes from religion. They want me to bear witness.”
Religion“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“It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.”
Truth“Trust no friend without faults, and love a woman, but no angel.”
Trust“There is only one real sin and that is to persuade oneself that the second best is anything but second best.”
Best“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“Sometimes I think what I write is funny in its quiet way.”
Funny“We use our parents like recurring dreams, to be entered into when needed.”
Dreams