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Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing Quotes

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Famous Doris Lessing Quotes

“I'm always astounded at the way we automatically look at what divides and separates us. We never look at what people have in common. If you see it, black and white people, both sides look to see the differences, they don't look at what they have together. Men and women, and old and young, and so on. And this is a disease of the mind, the way I see it. Because in actual fact, men and women have much more in common than they are separated.”

PeopleIfsMenWayMindLooksFactsTogetherYoungSidesBlackDifferencesWhiteCommonDiseaseMen And WomenDividesBlack And WhiteBoth SidesAstounded
Author:Doris Lessing
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“London has changed enormously and so have the English in the past decade. They're more like Americans and more like Europeans, too. They're always eating out, and when they're at home they don't cook the way they did ten years ago. They're all sitting around in cafés, like the Continentals, drinking coffee and chattering and watching the world go by.”

WorldWayYearsHomePastChangedTenEatingSittingYears AgoDrinkingLondonDecadesCoffeeCooksSitting AroundDrinking CoffeeEating OutAlways Eating
Author:Doris Lessing
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“You know, whenever women make imaginary female kingdoms in literature, they are always very permissive, to use the jargon word, and easy and generous and self-indulgent, like the relationships between women when there are no men around. They make each other presents, and they have little feasts, and nobody punishes anyone else. This is the female way of going along when there are no men about or when men are not in the ascendant.”

KnowsMenWayLittlesSelfUseLiteratureEasyFemaleKingdomsGenerousImaginaryJargonSelf Indulgent
Book:Putting questions differently: interviews with Doris Lessing, 1964-1994
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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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“There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag-and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty-and vise versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you.”

WayFeelsBookRememberReadingDoorsMovementOughtTwentiesLibraryOne WayThirtyFiftyFortyTrendsDragBoresRight TimeDroppingBookshopsBores You
Book:The Golden Notebook
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“If she had been left alone she would have gone on, in her own way, enjoying herself thoroughly, until people found one day that she had turned imperceptibly into one of those women who have become old without ever having been middle aged: a little withered, a little acid, hard as nails, sentimentally kindhearted, and addicted to religion or small dogs.”

PeopleIfsWayLittlesHardFoundLeftEnjoyGoneMiddleDogOne DayNailsAcidLeft AloneMiddle AgedWitheredSmall Dogs
Book:The Grass is Singing
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“At last I understood that the way over, or through this dilemma, the unease at writing about 'petty personal problems' was to recognize that nothing is personal, in the sense that it is uniquely one's own. Writing about oneself, one is writing about others, since your problems, pains, pleasures, emotions—and your extraordinary and remarkable ideas—can't be yours alone. [...] Growing up is after all only the understanding that one's unique and incredible experience is what everyone shares.”

WayWritingIdeasProblemPainLastsUnderstandingPleasureEmotionGrowing UpGrowingShareUniqueUnderstoodExtraordinaryIncrediblesOneselfRemarkablePettyDilemmaPersonal ProblemsPain Pleasure
Author:Doris Lessing
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“You should write, first of all, to please yourself. You shouldn't care a damn about anybody else at all. But writing can't be a way of life - the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.”

WayShouldWritingFirstsImportantCarePleaseDamnPlease Yourself
Book:Putting questions differently: interviews with Doris Lessing, 1964-1994
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