Author

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 had - I don't know what - the literary equivalent of a shower. Something that would start them thinking in a slightly different way, perhaps. That's what I think writers are for.

From Doris Lessing

Humanity's legacy of stories and storytelling is the most precious we have. All wisdom is in our stories and songs. A story is how we construct our experiences. At the very simplest, it can be: 'He/she was born, lived, died.' Probably that is the template of our stories - a beginning, middle, and end. This structure is in our minds.

From Doris Lessing

Borrowing is not much better than begging; just as lending with interest is not much better than stealing.

From Doris Lessing

There is only one real sin and that is to persuade oneself that the second best is anything but second best.

From Doris Lessing

When you're young you think that you're going to sail into a lovely lake of quietude and peace. This is profoundly untrue.

From Doris Lessing

September 11 was terrible but, if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible.

From Doris Lessing

I don't think that the feminist movement has done much for the characters of women.

From Doris Lessing

In the writing process, the more a story cooks, the better.

From Doris Lessing

I've worked hard all my life. You have to if you want to get things done.

From Doris Lessing

It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.

From Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing

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