Doris Lessing
» Age and Aging » “The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven’t changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don’t change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion.”
» Borrowing » “Borrowing is not much better than begging; just as lending with interest is not much better than stealing.”
» Cats » “If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air.”
» Colleges and Universities » “In university they don’t tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.”
» Counsel » “Better Counsel comes overnight.”
» Fame » “Some people obtain fame, others deserve it.”
» Faults » “Trust no friend without faults, and love a woman, but no angel.”
» Heroes and Heroism » “What is a hero without love for mankind.”
» Humankind » “Man who is he? Too bad, to be the work of God: Too good for the work of chance!”
» Laughter » “Laughter is by definition healthy.”
» Learning » “That’s what learning is. You suddenly understand something you understood all your life, but in a new way.”
» Literature » “Literature is analysis after the event.”
» Love » “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.”
» Political Correctness » “Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party line. What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of communism, but they don’t seem to see this.”
» Priorities » “It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important.”
» Science Fiction » “Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.”
» Self-image » “It is terrible to destroy a person’s picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.”
» Superstition » “The worst superstition is to consider our own tolerable.”
» Tears » “Pearls mean tears.”
