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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. "
Doris Lessing
You
Love
Know
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" A story is how we construct our experiences. "
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" You can't be a Red if you're married to a civil servant. "
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" Sentimentality is intolerable because it is false feeling. "
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" The human race has been telling stories since it began. "
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" It's lovely to have money to give away - that's the bonus of winning the Nobel. "
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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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" I was a nursemaid. And it was pretty boring. "
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" God knows why nobody ever learns from the preceding generation - but they don't. "
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" I hate Iran. I hate the Iranian government. It's a cruel and evil government. "
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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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Think
" I'm not one of those writers that sits worrying about posthumous fame. "
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" I have a daughter and two grand-daughters and a great grandson in Africa, in Cape Town. "
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Grandson
Two
Great
" I think kids ought to travel. I think it's very good to carry kids around. It's good for them. Of course it's tough on the parents. "
Doris Lessing
Think
Parents
Travel
" It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important. "
Doris Lessing
Matters
Treat
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" I'm just a story teller. "
Doris Lessing
Teller
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" I always hated Tony Blair, from the beginning. "
Doris Lessing
Blair
Beginning
Always
" 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
" Some people obtain fame, others deserve it. "
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Some
Deserve
Fame
" What really fascinates me is this need that is so strong now that if you read a work of the imagination you instantly have to say, 'Oh, what this really is is so-and-so,' reducing it to a simple formula. "
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Imagination
Strong
Work
" 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. "
Doris Lessing
Growing Up
Growing
Boy
" My father was in the First World War. "
Doris Lessing
World
Father
First World
" Literature is analysis after the event. "
Doris Lessing
Analysis
After
Event
" It's very interesting what you don't care about. "
Doris Lessing
Care
Interesting
About
" It's amazing what you find out about yourself when you write in the first person about someone very different from you. "
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Find
You
Yourself
" 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
" The thing is, I haven't changed at all. "
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Changed
Thing
" 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
" That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way. "
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You
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Life
" I thought that would go without saying, that if a mother gives up her children, it's very painful. "
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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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Hard Work
You
Work