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74 Top Quotes By Doris Lessing, The Author Of The Golden Notebook

Famous As: Novelist
Born On: October 22, 1919
Died On: November 17, 2013
Born In: Kermanshah, Iran
Died At Age: 94
Doris May Lessing was a poet, playwright, novelist, short story writer and biographer from Great Britain, who went on to become one of the greatest authors in the world and won plenty of accolades across a career spanning several decades. She was born in Iran and also lived in erstwhile Rhodesia and South Africa. Lessing started writing stories when she was still a child and got them published in magazines in South Africa. ‘The Grass is Singing’, Lessing’s first novel,  was published in 1950 however it was with her novel ‘The Golden Notebook’, published 12 years later that she became a global sensation and subsequently went on to become one of the world’s foremost authors. Some of her best known works include ‘Children of Violence’, ‘The Good Terrorist’, ‘The Fifth Child’, ‘The Sweetest Dream’, ‘Memories of a Survivor’ and the 5 novel collection titled ‘Canopus in Argos’, among many other works, including short story collections and biographies. Lessing’s lifelong dedication to the craft of writing brought her plenty of accolades and awards from different parts of the world, including the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007. Lessing’s work and life also provided a veritable feast of profound quotes that would be quoted for years to come. Here are the best ones.
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Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.

Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.

Doris Lessing
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.

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
Trust no friend without faults, and love a woman, but no angel.

Trust no friend without faults, and love a woman, but no angel.

Doris Lessing
There is no doubt fiction makes a better job of the truth.

There is no doubt fiction makes a better job of the truth.

Doris Lessing
That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way.

That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way.

Doris Lessing
As you get older, you don't get wiser. You get irritable.

As you get older, you don't get wiser. You get irritable.

Doris Lessing
I am a person who continually destroys the possibilities of a future because of the numbers of alternative viewpoints I can focus on the present.

I am a person who continually destroys the possibilities of a future because of the numbers of alternative viewpoints I can focus on the present.

Doris Lessing
Sometimes I dislike women, I dislike us all, because of our capacity for not-thinking when it suits us; we choose not to think when we are reaching our for happiness.

Sometimes I dislike women, I dislike us all, because of our capacity for not-thinking when it suits us; we choose not to think when we are reaching our for happiness.

Doris Lessing
Words. Words. I play with words, hoping that some combination, even a chance combination, will say what I want.

Words. Words. I play with words, hoping that some combination, even a chance combination, will say what I want.

Doris Lessing
Art is the Mirror of our betrayed ideals.

Art is the Mirror of our betrayed ideals.

Doris Lessing
In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.

In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.

Doris Lessing
For she was of that generation who, having found nothing in religion, had formed themselves through literature.

For she was of that generation who, having found nothing in religion, had formed themselves through literature.

Doris Lessing
There is only one real sin, and that is to persuade oneself that the second-best is anything but the second-best

There is only one real sin, and that is to persuade oneself that the second-best is anything but the second-best

Doris Lessing
How boring these emotions are that we're caught in and can't get free of, no matter how much we want to...

How boring these emotions are that we're caught in and can't get free of, no matter how much we want to...

Doris Lessing
Laughter is by definition healthy.

Laughter is by definition healthy.

Doris Lessing
We are all creatures of the stars.

We are all creatures of the stars.

Doris Lessing
It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.

It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.

Doris Lessing
Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty-and vise versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you.

Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty-and vise versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you.

Doris Lessing
Novels give you the matrix of emotions, give you the flavour of a time in a way formal history cannot.

Novels give you the matrix of emotions, give you the flavour of a time in a way formal history cannot.

Doris Lessing
You simply don't get to be wise, mature, etc., unless you've been a raving cannibal for thirty years or so.

You simply don't get to be wise, mature, etc., unless you've been a raving cannibal for thirty years or so.

Doris Lessing
Loneliness, she thought, was craving for other people's company. But she did not know that loneliness can be an unnoticed cramping of the spirit for lack of companionship.

Loneliness, she thought, was craving for other people's company. But she did not know that loneliness can be an unnoticed cramping of the spirit for lack of companionship.

Doris Lessing
People are just cannibals unless they leave each other alone.

People are just cannibals unless they leave each other alone.

Doris Lessing
Advice to young writers? Always the same advice: learn to trust our own judgment, learn inner independence, learn to trust that time will sort the good from the bad– including your own bad.

Advice to young writers? Always the same advice: learn to trust our own judgment, learn inner independence, learn to trust that time will sort the good from the bad– including your own bad.

Doris Lessing
A woman without a man cannot meet a man, any man, of any age, without thinking, even if it's for a half-second, 'Perhaps this is THE man.

A woman without a man cannot meet a man, any man, of any age, without thinking, even if it's for a half-second, 'Perhaps this is THE man.

Doris Lessing
All sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones moving easily under the flesh.

All sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones moving easily under the flesh.

Doris Lessing
I don't know why I still find it so hard to accept that words are faulty and by their very nature innacurate

I don't know why I still find it so hard to accept that words are faulty and by their very nature innacurate

Doris Lessing
For women like me, integrity isn't chastity, it isn't fidelity, it isn't any of the old words. Integrity is the orgasm. That is something I haven't any control over.

For women like me, integrity isn't chastity, it isn't fidelity, it isn't any of the old words. Integrity is the orgasm. That is something I haven't any control over.

Doris Lessing
Anna, there's something very arrogant about insisting on the right to be right.

Anna, there's something very arrogant about insisting on the right to be right.

Doris Lessing
Her own contempt for any forms of pressure society might put on her was so profound and instinctive that she as instinctively despised anyone who paid tribute to them.

Her own contempt for any forms of pressure society might put on her was so profound and instinctive that she as instinctively despised anyone who paid tribute to them.

Doris Lessing
We've got to believe in our beautiful impossible blueprints.

We've got to believe in our beautiful impossible blueprints.

Doris Lessing