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There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be.
Doris Lessing
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Doris Lessing
Age: 94 †
Born: 1919
Born: October 22
Died: 2013
Died: November 17
Autobiographer
Essayist
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Bakhtaran
Doris May Tayler
Jane Somers
Novel
Law
Ever
Writing
Never
Crafts
Laws
More quotes by Doris Lessing
It was all wrong, ugly, unhappy and coloured with cynicism, but nothing was tragic, there were no moments that could change anything or anybody. From time to time the emotional lightning flashed and showed a landscape of private misery, and then — we went on dancing.
Doris Lessing
The smell of manure, of sun on foliage, of evaporating water, rose to my head two steps farther, and I could look down into the vegetable garden enclosed within its tall pale of reeds - rich chocolate earth studded emerald green, frothed with the white of cauliflowers, jeweled with the purple globes of eggplant and the scarlet wealth of tomatoes.
Doris Lessing
I never thought of London in terms of possible heroes - of course, there are thousands. It's a very talented city.
Doris Lessing
It is quite easy to remark the absurdities and contradictions of a country's social system from outside its borders, but very difficult if one has been brought up in it.
Doris Lessing
Trust no friend without faults, and love a woman, but no angel.
Doris Lessing
Words. Words. I play with words, hoping that some combination, even a chance combination, will say what I want.
Doris Lessing
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
I am sure everyone has had the experience of reading a book and finding it vibrating with aliveness, with colour and immediacy. And then, perhaps some weeks later, reading it again and finding it flat and empty. Well, the book hasn't changed: you have.
Doris Lessing
Man who is he? Too bad, to be the work of God: Too good for the work of chance!
Doris Lessing
This is an inevitable and easily recognizable stage in every revolutionary movement: reformers must expect to be disowned by those who are only too happy to enjoy what has been won for them.
Doris Lessing
Living in a small town anywhere means preserving one's self behind a mask.
Doris Lessing
Nicknames are potent ways of cutting people down to size.
Doris Lessing
But children can't be a center of life and a reason for being. They can be a thousand things that are delightful, interesting, satisfying, but they can't be a well-spring to live from. Or they shouldn't be.
Doris Lessing
What I had that others didn't was a capacity for sticking to it.
Doris Lessing
Anna was saying to herself: why do I always have this awful need to make other people see things as I do? It's childish, why should they? What it amounts to is that I'm scared of being alone in what I feel.
Doris Lessing
Women are the cowards they are because they have been semi-slaves for so long. The number of women prepared to stand up for what they really think, feel, experience, with a man they are in love with is still very small.
Doris Lessing
I am so happy to be communicating with people on this newest of new wavelengths which to some older people must seem like a kind of magic.
Doris Lessing
Wisdom is better than weapons of war but one sinner destroyeth much good.
Doris Lessing
I am interested only in stretching myself, on living as fully as I can.
Doris Lessing
All one's life as a young woman one is on show, a focus of attention, people notice you. You set yourself up to being noticed and admired. And then, not expecting it, you become middle-aged and anonymous.
Doris Lessing