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" 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. "

Doris Lessing

Know

Start

Think

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" I would not be at all surprised to find out... that the dimensions of buildings affect us in ways we don't guess. "

" I don't think that the feminist movement has done much for the characters of women. "

" It usually takes me a year to do a book. A year or eighteen months. "

Doris Lessing

Eighteen

Months

" Some people obtain fame, others deserve it. "

" 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. "

" I'll be pleased when I'm dead. That will let me off worrying about all these wars. "

" Time and distance from the first and second world wars doesn't seem to lessen their horrors. "

" There's always this sense of incredulity that writers feel, because they're usually living flat and ordinary lives, because they have to. "

" They can't give a Nobel to someone who's dead so I think they were probably thinking they had better give it to me now before I popped off. "

Doris Lessing

Better

Thinking

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

" My mother was a woman who was very frustrated. She had a great deal of ability, and all this energy went into me and my brother. "

" I never thought of London in terms of possible heroes - of course, there are thousands. It's a very talented city. "

" I wanted to write about my mother as she should have been if she had not been messed up by World War I. "

" When I started, there were no big interviews, no television, no profiles and all that. The publishers were quite shockingly uncommercial, but they did look after their writers. "

" I wanted to highlight that whole dreadful process in book publishing that 'nothing succeeds like success.' "

Doris Lessing

Nothing

Process

" I do not think that marriage is one of my talents. I've been much happier unmarried than married. "

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

" 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

You

Say

" Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so. "

" The Nobel Prize is run by a self-perpetuated committee. They vote for themselves and get the world's publishing industry to jump to their tune. "

" The human race has been telling stories since it began. "

" Sometimes I think what I write is funny in its quiet way. "

" 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. "

" When young I did my best to undo that bit of the British Empire I found myself in: that is, old Southern Rhodesia. "

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

" I don't think in terms of optimism and pessimism when writing a story. I am telling a story. "

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

" I think a lot of romanticizing has gone on with the women's movement. "

" When there's a war, people get married. "

" I never stopped reading. "