Doris Lessing Quotes

That's what learning is. You suddenly understand something you understood all your life, but in a new way.

In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.

It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important.

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

Trust no friend without faults, and love a woman, but no angel.

Better Counsel comes overnight.

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

Laughter is by definition healthy.

A simple grateful thought turned heavenwards is the most perfect prayer.

Borrowing is not much better than begging;

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

Pearls mean tears.

If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air.

What is a hero without love for mankind.

Some people obtain fame, others deserve it.

Man who is he? Too bad, to be the work of God: Too good for the work of chance!

Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.

What's terrible is to pretend that the second-rate is first-rate, that you don't need love when you do or that you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.

There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be.

Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party line.

What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of communism, but they don't seem to see this.

The worst superstition is to consider our own tolerable.

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.

This world is run by people who know how to do things.

They know how things work. They are equipped. Up there, there's a layer of people who run everything. But we - we're just peasants. We don't understand what's going on, and we can't do anything.

With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates.

It is the most democratic of institutions because no one - but no one at all - can tell you what to read and when and how.

That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way.

This world is run by people who know how to do things.

They know how things work. They are equipped. Up there, there's a layer of people who run everything. But we --we're just peasants. We don't understand what's going on, and we can't do anything.

What's terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate.

To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.

A public library is the most democratic thing in the world.

What can be found there has undone dictators and tyrants: demagogues can persecute writers and tell them what to write as much as they like, but they cannot vanish what has been written in the past, though they try often enough...People who love literature have at least part of their minds immune from indoctrination. If you read, you can learn to think for yourself.

Literature is analysis after the event.

I don't know much about creative writing programs.

But they're not telling the truth if they don't teach, one, that writing is hard work, and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer.

Think wrongly, if you please, but in all cases think for yourself.

That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way.

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

Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so.