Doris Lessing Quotes

"Pearls mean tears."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"You can't be a Red if you're married to a civil servant."

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

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

"Pleasure resorts are like film stars and royalty... embarrassed by the figures they cut in the fantasies of people who have never met them."

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

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

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

"Some people obtain fame, others deserve it."

"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."

"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."

"We use our parents like recurring dreams, to be entered into when needed."

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

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

"Laughter is by definition healthy."