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" I wasn't an active feminist in the '60s, never have been. "
Doris Lessing
Feminist
Never
Active
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" You know, when I was a girl, the idea that the British Empire could ever end was absolutely inconceivable. And it just disappeared, like all the other empires. "
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" What I really can't stand about the feminist revolution is that it produced some of the smuggest, most unselfcritical people the world has ever seen. They are horrible. "
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" I don't write well when I'm sitting there sweating about every single phrase. "
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" 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. "
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" I'm not one of those writers that sits worrying about posthumous fame. "
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" I am your original autodidact. "
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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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" Sometimes I think what I write is funny in its quiet way. "
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Quiet
Sometimes
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" I don't think in terms of optimism and pessimism when writing a story. I am telling a story. "
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" I thought that would go without saying, that if a mother gives up her children, it's very painful. "
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" With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one - but no one at all - can tell you what to read and when and how. "
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You
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" The World War I, I'm a child of World War I. And I really know about the children of war. Because both my parents were both badly damaged by the war. My father, physically, and both mentally and emotionally. So, I know exactly what it's like to be brought up in an atmosphere of a continual harping on the war. "
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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. "
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Know
Start
Think
" We use our parents like recurring dreams, to be entered into when needed. "
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Our
Use
Parents
" Humanity's legacy of stories and storytelling is the most precious we have. All wisdom is in our stories and songs. A story is how we construct our experiences. At the very simplest, it can be: 'He/she was born, lived, died.' Probably that is the template of our stories - a beginning, middle, and end. This structure is in our minds. "
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Wisdom
Beginning
End
" When I was a girl, the idea that the British Empire could ever end was absolutely inconceivable. And it just disappeared, like all the other empires. You know, when people talk about the British Empire, they always forget that all the European countries had empires. "
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End
Forget
People
" There is only one real sin and that is to persuade oneself that the second best is anything but second best. "
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Sin
Only
Real
" I have ideas that I will probably never write now. "
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Ideas
Write
Will
" Some people obtain fame, others deserve it. "
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Some
Deserve
Fame
" Trust no friend without faults, and love a woman, but no angel. "
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Love
Trust
Woman
" What the feminists want of me is something they haven't examined because it comes from religion. They want me to bear witness. "
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Me
Bear
Want
" I do not think that marriage is one of my talents. I've been much happier unmarried than married. "
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Much
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" A story is how we construct our experiences. "
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Story
Construct
Experiences
" We like to think we can solve everything, but we can't always. "
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Think
Everything
Solve
" I do not think writers ought ever to sit down and think they must write about some cause, or theme, or something. If they write about their own experiences, something true is going to emerge. "
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True
Down
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" I'll be pleased when I'm dead. That will let me off worrying about all these wars. "
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Worrying
Dead
Off
" 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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Unexpected
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" I do have a sense, and I've never not had it, of how easily things can vanish. "
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How
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" There's 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. "
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