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Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing Quotes

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Famous Doris Lessing Quotes

“Writers brought up in Africa have many advantages - being at the center of a modern battlefield; part of a society in rapid, dramatic change. But in a long run it can also be a handicap: to wake up every morning with one's eyes on a fresh evidence of inhumanity; to be reminded twenty times a day of injustice, and always the same brand of it, can be limiting.”

LongEyeRunningMorningModernEvidenceAdvantageWake UpTwentiesInjusticeBrandsDramaticLong RunsEvery MorningRapidsBattlefieldsInhumanityHandicapsDramatic Change
Book:This Was the Old Chief’s Country: Collected African Stories Volume One
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“But it isn't only the terror everywhere, and the fear of being conscious of it, that freezes people. It's more than that. People know they are in a society dead or dying. They are refusing emotion because at the end of very emotion are property, money, power. They work and despise their work, and so freeze themselves. They love but know that it's a half- love or a twisted love, and so they freeze themselves.”

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Book:The Golden Notebook
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“Why were the Europeans bothered about the Soviet Union at all? It was nothing to do with us. China had nothing to do with us. Why were we not building, without reference to the Soviet Union, a good society in our own countries? But no, we were all - in one way or another - obsessed with the bloody Soviet Union, which was a disaster. What people were supporting was failure. And continually justifying it.”

PeopleWayCountryBuildingUnionsChinaDisasterOne WayObsessedSovietBloodySoviet UnionBothered
Author:Doris Lessing
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“Does political correctness have a good side? Yes, it does, for it makes us re-examine attitudes, and that is always useful. The trouble is that, with all popular movements, the lunatic fringe so quickly ceases to be a fringe; the tail begins to wag the dog. For every woman or man who is quietly and sensibly using the idea to examine our assumptions, there are twenty rabble-rousers whose real motive is desire for power over others. The fact that they see themselves as antiracists or feminists or whatever does not make them any less rabble-rousers.”

MenDoeIdeasRealPoliticalDesireSidesAttitudeTroubleDogMovementFeministCeaseMotiveAssumptionRacistTailsFringePolitical CorrectnessLunaticCorrectnessWagsAnti RacistPower Over OthersWag The DogDesire For Power
Author:Doris Lessing
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“I often feel like a dinosaur. I don't get the technology thing at all. I was on the Internet not long ago for Barnes and Noble, and people were ringing up from all over the world - Australia, Canada, France. I experienced it as an informal chat, which was pleasant, but I couldn't quite take it in. It had a strong element of unreality. I can't be bothered to switch to a computer at my age, though I might get along with e-mail, which sounds appealing.”

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Author:Doris Lessing
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“I think I am at the end of a certain phase of my life. What I'm on the lookout for now is the unexpected, for things that come from outside and that I never thought might happen. Sometimes you have to watch for them so you don't automatically say no to the new, simply because you're in the habit of saying no to everything that comes along. I'm constantly changing my perspective on my own life. I see the past differently, and that's a wonderful thing.”

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Author:Doris Lessing
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“The 1960s was probably the first time in history that young people were recognized as a big group of consumers and as a commercial proposition for Madison Avenue. Advertising played a major role in creating the ethos of that era - the idea that, "Here it is, and you can have it now." I know that many kids thought that the ethos of the 1960s was due to their own peculiar virtues, but, in fact, it had a lot to do with the realities of the marketplace and commerce.”

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Author:Doris Lessing
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“We always seem to be surprised by events, especially by catastrophes, but also by wonderful events. Look at 1990, the year that the Soviet Union collapsed and apartheid in South Africa collapsed and the Berlin Wall came down. I don't know anyone who foresaw those events. It seems to me that as a species we are constantly trying to adapt ourselves to the unexpected. In the meantime, we talk as if we are in control, and we're not. This seems to me to be the truth about the twentieth century.”

TryingWonderfulWallUnexpectedSovietSouth AfricaCatastropheSoviet UnionApartheidBerlin Wall
Author:Doris Lessing
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“The first casualty in any war is the truth. In World War II, I was part of a group of people who used to meet once a week with the sole purpose of analyzing the news and trying to work out what we weren't being told. We thought that we were clever, but we had absolutely no idea what was really going on. It was only years later that we learned the true story.”

PeopleWorldTryingWarPurposeWeekWork OutCleverWar Of The WorldsWorld War IiWorld War ITrue Story
Author:Doris Lessing
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“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.”

PeopleYearsBodyAgeTimeCoursesCausesSecretShareHavensChangedAgingYour BodyConfusionOld AgeBirthdaySeventiesOld PeopleConfusingEldersEightyGrowing OldDon't ChangeFunny AgingBirthdays And AgingYouth And Old AgeAge And YouthInspirational AgeBody ChangeGolden Notebook
Author:Doris Lessing
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