It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important. – Doris Lessing
Pearls mean tears. – Doris Lessing
If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air. – Doris Lessing
The worst superstition is to consider our own tolerable. – Doris Lessing
This world is run by people who know how to do things. They know how things work. They are equipped. Up there, theres a layer of people who run everything. But we –were just peasants. We dont understand whats going on, and we cant do anything. – Doris Lessing
I dont think that the feminist movement has done much for the characters of women. – Doris Lessing
All my friends mothers were appalling women. – Doris Lessing
You cannot escape the fact that women mould your first five years, whether you like it or not. And I cant say I do like it very much. – Doris Lessing
I think a lot of romanticizing has gone on with the womens movement. – Doris Lessing
When theres a war, people get married. – Doris Lessing
I dont know much about creative writing programs. But theyre not telling the truth if they dont 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
It is terrible to destroy a persons picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction. – Doris Lessing
I think kids ought to travel. I think its very good to carry kids around. Its good for them. Of course its tough on the parents. – Doris Lessing
I wanted to highlight that whole dreadful process in book publishing that nothing succeeds like success. – Doris Lessing
Theres 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
What the feminists want of me is something they havent examined because it comes from religion. They want me to bear witness. – Doris Lessing
When youre young you think that youre going to sail into a lovely lake of quietude and peace. This is profoundly untrue. – Doris Lessing
Its lovely to have money to give away – thats the bonus of winning the Nobel. – Doris Lessing
I do not think that marriage is one of my talents. Ive been much happier unmarried than married. – Doris Lessing
That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something youve understood all your life, but in a new way. – Doris Lessing
