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
Nonsense, it was all nonsense: this whole damned outfit, with its committees, its conferences, its eternal talk, talk, talk, was a great… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
For with my intuition I knew that this man was repeating a pattern over and over again: courting a woman with his… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
There's an unconscious bias in our society: girls are wonderful; boys are terrible. And to be a boy, or young man, growing… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
A woman without a man cannot meet a man, any man, of any age, without thinking, even if it's for a half-second,… — 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 words of a wise man's mouth are gracious; but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself. — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
I find myself increasingly shocked at the unthinking and automatic rubbishing of men which is now so part of our culture that… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
Does political correctness have a good side? Yes, it does, for it makes us re-examine attitudes, and that is always useful. The… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
When a white man in Africa by accident looks into the eyes of a native and sees the human being (which it… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
The world is only tolerable because of the empty places in it...when the world's filled up, we'll have to get hold of… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
[The Golden Notebook] was not a trumpet for Women's Liberation. It described many female emotions of aggression, hostility, resentment. It put them… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
Women have an extraordinary ability to withdraw from the sexual relationship, to immunize themselves against it, in such a way that their… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
I'm always astounded at the way we automatically look at what divides and separates us. We never look at what people have… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
I think people are always looking for gurus. It's the easiest thing in the world to become a guru. It's quite terrifying.… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
Man who is he? Too bad, to be the work of God: Too good for the work of chance! — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
As the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are… — 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
We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
Africa gives you the knowledge that man is a small creature, among other creatures, in a large landscape. — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
What women will say to other women grumbling in their kitchens and complaining and gossiping or what they make clear in their… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
The white man has settled like a locust over Africa, and, like the locusts in early morning, cannot take flight for the… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
None of you [men] ask for anything - except everything, but just for so long as you need it. — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
Women are the cowards they are because they have been semi-slaves for so long. The number of women prepared to stand up… — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
It has become a kind of religion that you can't criticise because then you become a traitor to the great cause, which… — 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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
I do not think that marriage is one of my talents. I've been much happier unmarried than married. — Doris Lessing Copy Share Image
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 Image
“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 Image