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
bringing taught work
When I was bringing up a child, I taught myself to write in very short, concentrated bursts. If I had a weekend, or a week, I'd do unbelievable amounts of work.
capable english-writer love pretend quite terrible work
What's terrible is to pretend that the second-rate is first-rate, that you don't need love when you do or that you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.
work age lasts
For the last third of life there remains only work. It alone is always stimulating, rejuvenating, exciting and satisfying.
giving-up writing hard-work
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.
education novels sorry threw wrote
I was writing all my childhood. And I wrote two novels when I was 17, which were terrible. And I'm not sorry I threw them out. So, I wrote. I had to write. You know, the thing was, I had no education.
dictates fiction form problem science
I see every book as a problem that you have to solve. That is what dictates the form you use. It's not that you say, 'I want to write a science fiction book.' You start from the other end, and what you have to say dictates the form of it.
children dozen married second war wicked
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.
dimensions surprised ways
I would not be at all surprised to find out... that the dimensions of buildings affect us in ways we don't guess.
women
I think a lot of romanticizing has gone on with the women's movement.
life
I am always being described as having views that I've never had in my life.
good written
You know, looking at it objectively, I've written one or two good books.
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.
gives
I thought that would go without saying, that if a mother gives up her children, it's very painful.
sweating
I don't write well when I'm sitting there sweating about every single phrase.