Doris Lessing Quotes
31 Doris Lessing quotes:
"Pearls mean tears."
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"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."
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"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."
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"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."
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"You can't be a Red if you're married to a civil servant."
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"There is only one real sin, and that is to persuade oneself that the second-best is anything but the second-best"
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"Think wrongly, if you please, but in all cases think for yourself."
English Writer Quotes
American History Quotes
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"Pleasure resorts are like film stars and royalty... embarrassed by the figures they cut in the fantasies of people who have never met them."
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"For the last third of life there remains only work. It alone is always stimulating, rejuvenating, exciting and satisfying."
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"Borrowing is not much better than begging; just as lending with interest is not much better than stealing."
English Writer Quotes
Borrowing Quotes
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"There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be."
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"Some people obtain fame, others deserve it."
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"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."
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"That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way."
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"In the writing process, the more a story cooks, the better."
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"Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so."
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"We use our parents like recurring dreams, to be entered into when needed."
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"Man, who is he? Too bad, to be the work of God: Too good for the work of chance!"
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"In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools."
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"Laughter is by definition healthy."
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