Doris Lessing
Doris Lessing
Doris May Lessing CHwas a British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels include The Grass is Singing, the sequence of five novels collectively called Children of Violence, The Golden Notebook, The Good Terrorist, and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos: Archives...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth22 October 1919
dream writing sleep
In the writing process, the more the story cooks, the better. The brain works for you even when you are at rest. I find dreams particularly useful. I myself think a great deal before I go to sleep and the details sometimes unfold in the dream.
red married servant
You can't be a Red if you're married to a civil servant.
men culture shocked
I find myself increasingly shocked at the unthinking and automatic rubbishing of men which is now so part of our culture that it is hardly even noticed.
daughter two towns
I have a daughter and two grand-daughters and a great grandson in Africa, in Cape Town.
stars air climbing
I was filled with such a dangerous delicious intoxication that I could have walked straight off the steps into the air, climbing on the strength of my own drunkeness into the stars. And the intoxication, as I knew even then, was the recklessness of infinite possibility.
time
Everything all the time in a city is extraordinary!
god knows learns
God knows why nobody ever learns from the preceding generation - but they don't.
human since telling
The human race has been telling stories since it began.
hold spend takes
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.'
almost few list paper shop war
I remember World War II when there were very few books, very little paper available. For me to walk into a shop or look at a list and see anything that I want, or almost anything, is like a kind of miracle.
sweating
I don't write well when I'm sitting there sweating about every single phrase.
gives
I thought that would go without saying, that if a mother gives up her children, it's very painful.
cannot five mould whether women
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.
good written
You know, looking at it objectively, I've written one or two good books.