Our society is dependent on some precarious mechanisms, and they are very dicey. They can easily collapse. Doris Lessing on society
There's an unconscious bias in our society: girls are wonderful boys are terrible. And to be a boy, or young man, growing up, having to listen to all this, it must be painful. Doris Lessing on society
What society doesn't realize is that in the past, ordinary people respected learning. They respected books, and they don't now, or not very much. That whole respect for serious literature and learning has disappeared. Doris Lessing on society
I wanted to highlight that whole dreadful process in book publishing that 'nothing succeeds like success.' Doris Lessing on success
I think kids ought to travel. I think it's very good to carry kids around. It's good for them. Of course it's tough on the parents. Doris Lessing on travel
Trust no friend without faults, and love a woman, but no angel. Doris Lessing on trust
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. Doris Lessing on truth
It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction. Doris Lessing on truth
My father was in the First World War. Doris Lessing on war
When there's a war, people get married. Doris Lessing on war
I wanted to write about my mother as she should have been if she had not been messed up by World War I. Doris Lessing on war
I think a lot of romanticizing has gone on with the women's movement. Doris Lessing on women
Men are restless, adventurous. Women are conservative - despite what current ideology says. Doris Lessing on women
I don't think that the feminist movement has done much for the characters of women. Doris Lessing on women
All my friends' mothers were appalling women. Doris Lessing on women
You cannot escape the fact that women mould your first five years, whether you like it or not. And I can't say I do like it very much. Doris Lessing on women