If we were to put into practice what we know ... but that is the point. — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
Everyone knows that where there is something that is capable of giving profit, then exploited it will be. — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
We do not know which of our silver products will be judged as gold by our successors, nor does it matter. — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
God knows why nobody ever learns from the preceding generation - but they don't. — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
The older I get the more secrets I have, never to be revealed and this, I know, is a common condition of… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
It is not always possible to know, when you make a note of an event, or a state of mind, how this… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
Women's emotions are still fitted for a kind of society that no longer exists. My deep emotions, my real ones, are to… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
What is terrible is that after every one of the phases of my life is finished, I am left with no more… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
It is my belief that children are full of understanding and know as much as and more than adults, until they are… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
It isn't only the terror everywhere, and the fear of being conscious of it, that freezes people. It's more than that. People… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
You have to deduce a person's real feelings about a thing by a smile she does not know is on her face,… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
You know, whenever women make imaginary female kingdoms in literature, they are always very permissive, to use the jargon word, and easy… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
“But there is no doubt that to attempt a novel of ideas is to give oneself a handicap: the parochialism of our… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
The point is, that the function of the novel seems to be changing; it has become an outpost of journalism; we read… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
But it isn't only the terror everywhere, and the fear of being conscious of it, that freezes people. It's more than that.… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
I think a writer's job is to provoke questions. I like to think that if someone's read a book of mine, they've… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
In times of war, as everyone knows, who has lived through one, or talked to soldiers when they are allowing themselves to… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
People who have lived through a war know that as it approaches, an at first secret, unacknowledged, elation begins, as if an… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
Some books are not read in the right way because they have skipped a stage of opinion, assume a crystallization of information in society… — Doris Lessing Copy Share
“In the morning, when she wishes me to wake, she crouches on my chest, and pats my face with her paw. Or, if I… — Doris Lessing Copy Share
You know, whenever women make imaginary female kingdoms in literature, they are always very permissive, to use the jargon word, and easy and generous… — Doris Lessing Copy Share
There is only one real sin and that is to persuade oneself that the second best is anything but second best. — Doris Lessing Copy Share
“She was using the water as she had used the fruit earlier—to calm herself, to assure herself of the possibility of normality. Yet all… — Doris Lessing Copy Share
I remember World War II when there were very few books, very little paper available. For me to walk into a shop or look… — Doris Lessing Copy Share
They can't give a Nobel to someone who's dead so I think they were probably thinking they had better give it to me now… — Doris Lessing Copy Share
“While she strode rapidly through the ward to the door at the other end, she was able to see that every bed or cot… — Doris Lessing Copy Share
I do not think that marriage is one of my talents. I've been much happier unmarried than married. — Doris Lessing Copy Share
What really fascinates me is this need that is so strong now that if you read a work of the imagination you instantly have… — Doris Lessing Copy Share
“The charge that the United Nations are using bacteriological warfare in Korea cannot be dismissed merely because it would be insane.” — Doris Lessing Copy Share
What I did have, which others perhaps didn't, was a capacity for sticking at it, which really is the point, not the talent at… — Doris Lessing Copy Share
The human community is evolving... . We can survive anything you care to mention. We are supremely equipped to survive, to adapt and even… — Doris Lessing Copy Share
So love is rest? The cosy corner? The little nook? Sometimes it ought to be. Sometimes it is. — Doris Lessing Copy Share
