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Quote by Doris Lessing

“We are several people fitted inside each other. Chinese boxes. Our bodies are the outside box. Or the inside one if you like.”

Quote by Doris Lessing

Book:Canopus in Argos: Archives

Work

Canopus in Argos: Archives

In this science fiction novel, the author delves into the intricacies of a distant star system, Canopus in Argos, where various civilizations vie for power and control. The narrative intertwines the lives of individuals with the broader political and philosophical themes of the universe. more

Author

Doris Lessing was a British novelist known for her profound psychological insights and critical exploration of social and political issues. Her works covered a wide range of themes from personal experiences to global concerns, including colonialism, gender roles, and women's liberation. Lessing's writing style is unique and vivid, and she has had a significant impact on postcolonial and feminist literature. more

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“One novel in five hundred or a thousand has the quality a novel should have to make it a novel -- the quality of philosophy.”

Should Philosophy Quality Novel Five Thousand Hundred Should Have Golden Notebook

Book:The Golden Notebook

Source: The Golden Notebook

“Perhaps it is a fault of the species who thrive in peace, mutual help, aspirations for more of the same -- to forget that outside these borders dwell very different types of mind, feeding on different fuel.”

Mind Different Helping Forget Type Faults Species Borders Aspiration Fuel Thrive Mutual Feeding Mutual Help

Book:Shikasta (Canopus in Argos: Archives Series, Book 1)

Source: Shikasta (Canopus in Argos: Archives Series, Book 1)

“At no time, anywhere, was the population of a country told the truth: facts about events trickled into general consciousness much later, if ever.”

Ifs Country Facts Consciousness Events Population

Book:Shikasta: Re, Colonised Planet 5

Source: Shikasta: Re, Colonised Planet 5

“If what we think now is different from what we thought then, we can take it for granted that what we think in a year will be different again.”

Ifs Thinking Years Different Granted

Book:Canopus in Argos: Archives

Source: Canopus in Argos: Archives

“This is a time when it is frightening to be alive, when it is hard to think of human beings as rational creatures. Everywhere we look we see brutality, stupidity, until it seems that there is nothing else to be seen but that--a descent into barbarism, everywhere, which we are unable to check. But I think that while it is true there is a general worsening, it is precisely because things are so frightening we become hypnotized, and do not notice--or if we notice, belittle--equally strong forces on the other side, the forces, in short, of reason, sanity and civilization.”

Source: Prisons We Choose to Live Inside

“Sleep is harder to reach and thinner, and sleeping is no longer the Drop into the black pit all oblivion until the alarm clock, no, sleep is thin and fitful and full of memories and reminders and the dark is never dark enough.”

Enough Black Memories Dark Sleep Harder Clock Oblivion Reminders Pits Alarms Alarm Clocks No Sleep

Author:Doris Lessing

“When a book's pattern and the shape of its inner life is as plain to the reader as it is to the author -- then perhaps it is time to throw the book aside, as having had its day, and start again on something new.”

Book Life Is Reader Shapes Patterns Something New Inner Life

Book:The Golden Notebook

Source: The Golden Notebook

“You have to deduce a person's real feelings about a thing by a smile she does not know is on her face, by the way bitterness tightens muscles at a mouth's corner, or the way air is allowed to flow from the lungs.”

Knows Way Persons Doe Real Feelings Faces Air Mouths Flow Corners Muscles Bitterness Lungs Real Feelings

Author:Doris Lessing

“You are taken, shaken, by moments when the improbability of our lives comes over you like a fever. Everything is remarkable, people, living, events present themselves to you with the immediacy of players in some barbarous and splendid drama that it seems we are part of. You have been given new eyes.”

People Has Beens Moments Seems Eye Given Taken Our Lives Player Events Drama Remarkable Over You Splendid Fever Immediacy New Eyes Improbability

Author:Doris Lessing

“If we were to put into practice what we know ... but that is the point.”

Ifs Knows Practice

Book:Prisons We Choose to Live Inside

Source: Prisons We Choose to Live Inside