574 Quotes by Doris Lessing

My major aim was to shape a book which would make its own comment, a wordless statement: to talk through the way it was shaped.

We like to think we can solve everything, but we can't always.

You can't be a Red if you're married to a civil servant.

The difficulty of writing about sex, for women, is that sex is best when not thought about, not analysed.

So love is rest? The cosy corner? The little nook? Sometimes it ought to be. Sometimes it is.

People don't mind immoral messages. They don't mind art which says that murder is good, cruelty is good, sex for sex's sake is good. They like it, provided the message is wrapped up a little. And they like messages saying that murder is bad, cruelty is bad, and love is love is love is love. What they can't stand is to be told it all doesn't matter, they can't stand formlessness.

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

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

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