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" September 11 was terrible but, if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible. "
Doris Lessing
Over
Back
History
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" It is very enjoyable, writing a story. You get this idea. It takes hold of you. And then you spend day and night thinking about how to do it. And then you do it. And much later, you think, 'Oh, yes. That's an interesting question.' "
Doris Lessing
Night
Think
Writing
" I think a lot of romanticizing has gone on with the women's movement. "
Doris Lessing
Women
Gone
I Think
" 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. "
Doris Lessing
Hard Work
You
Work
" All I do is give interviews and spend time being photographed. "
Doris Lessing
Give
Spend
Being
" We use our parents like recurring dreams, to be entered into when needed. "
Doris Lessing
Our
Use
Parents
" 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
" 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. "
Doris Lessing
You
Tell
Free
" Things are not quite so simple always as black and white. "
Doris Lessing
White
Simple
Black And White
" For the last third of life there remains only work. It alone is always stimulating, rejuvenating, exciting and satisfying. "
Doris Lessing
Work
Only
Life
" God knows why nobody ever learns from the preceding generation - but they don't. "
Doris Lessing
Generation
God
Knows
" I got married and I had children because of the Second World War, as all of us did, exclaiming, 'Oh, no, we are never going to bring a child into this wicked world,' but we had children by the dozen and got married. "
Doris Lessing
Children
World
War
" My father was in the First World War. "
Doris Lessing
World
Father
First World
" Small things amuse small minds. "
Doris Lessing
Minds
Small
Small Things
" As soon as I got the Nobel Prize my back collapsed and I was in hospital. "
Doris Lessing
Got
Prize
Nobel Prize
" When young I did my best to undo that bit of the British Empire I found myself in: that is, old Southern Rhodesia. "
Doris Lessing
Best
Young
Undo
" It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction. "
Doris Lessing
Some
Truth
Destroy
" 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. "
Doris Lessing
You
Love
Know
" The human race has been telling stories since it began. "
Doris Lessing
Stories
Human
Human Race
" There is only one real sin and that is to persuade oneself that the second best is anything but second best. "
Doris Lessing
Sin
Only
Real
" If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air. "
Doris Lessing
Cat
Air
Shape
" Men are restless, adventurous. Women are conservative - despite what current ideology says. "
Doris Lessing
Adventurous
Men
Women
" It's very interesting what you don't care about. "
Doris Lessing
Care
Interesting
About
" 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. "
Doris Lessing
True
Down
Own
" When there's a war, people get married. "
Doris Lessing
People
Get
Get Married
" I don't think that the feminist movement has done much for the characters of women. "
Doris Lessing
Much
Done
Movement
" 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. "
Doris Lessing
Big
Television
Look
" I'm not one of those writers that sits worrying about posthumous fame. "
Doris Lessing
Writers
Worrying
Those
" I thought that would go without saying, that if a mother gives up her children, it's very painful. "
Doris Lessing
Saying
Children
Her
" Man, who is he? Too bad, to be the work of God: Too good for the work of chance! "
Doris Lessing
Bad
Chance
God
" 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. "
Doris Lessing
Work
Going
People