Doris Lessing Quotes - Page 2

The freedom of women was achieved by two things: One, the Pill. Two... by labour-saving devices like the washing machine. By science, not feminism.

Envy has always hidden behind moral indignation.

I find myself increasingly shocked at the unthinking and automatic rubbishing of men which is now so part of our culture that it is hardly even noticed.

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.

What a luxury a cat is, the moments of shocking and startling pleasure in a day, the feel of the beast, the soft sleekness under your palm, the warmth when you wake on a cold night, the grace and charm even in a quite ordinary workaday puss. Cat walks across your room, and in that lonely stalk you see leopard or even panther, or it turns its head to acknowledge you and the yellow blaze of those eyes tells you what an exotic visitor you have here, in this household friend, the cat who purrs as you stroke, or rub his chin, or scratch his head.

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

For there is never any way to go but in.

Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty - and vise versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you.

The cleverest trick of the Devil is that nobody believes in him. It. Her. Well, we have been very stupid.

There is nothing more boring for an intelligent woman than to spend endless amounts of time with small children.

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

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

Capable people do not understand incapacity; clever people do not understand stupidity.

I treasure solitude. One doesn't have to have human contact.

Women are slaves to their beauty.

Mostly getting old is boring. I hate the stiffness in the bones. I was physically arrogant for years. I don't like it now that I have difficulty getting around. But a certain equanimity sets in, a certain detachment. Things seem less desperately important than they once did, and that's a pleasure.

The youth do not see the old. They are not programmed to see the old, who are cancelled, negated, wiped out.

Every child has the capacity to be everything.

... if you have nothing, you are free to choose among dreams and fantasies.

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.

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. This is what our function is.

For the last third of life there remains only work. It alone is always stimulating, rejuvenating, exciting and satisfying.

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

It is my belief that children are full of understanding and know as much as and more than adults, until they are about seven, when they suddenly become stupid, like adults.

There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag-and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty-and vise versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you.