“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.”
ImaginationAll Quotes by Doris Lessing
“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“Sometimes I think what I write is funny in its quiet way.”
Funny“Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.”
Science“What the feminists want of me is something they haven't examined because it comes from religion. They want me to bear witness.”
Religion“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“It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.”
Truth“I think a lot of romanticizing has gone on with the women's movement.”
Women“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“Men are restless, adventurous. Women are conservative - despite what current ideology says.”
Women“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“In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.”
Learning“Trust no friend without faults, and love a woman, but no angel.”
Trust“I hate Iran. I hate the Iranian government. It's a cruel and evil government.”
Government“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“When there's a war, people get married.”
War“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“I don't think that the feminist movement has done much for the characters of women.”
Women