574 Quotes by Doris Lessing

Sitting there I had a vision of the world with nations, systems, economic blocks, hardening and consolidating; a world where it would become increasingly ludicrous even to talk about freedom, or the individual conscience.

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.

When a book’s pattern and the shape of its inner life is as plain to the reader as it is to the author – then perhaps it is time to throw the book aside, as having had its day, and start again on something new.

One novel in five hundred or a thousand has the quality a novel should have to make it a novel – the quality of philosophy.

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

Please don’t be alarmed, you’d be surprised how many charming people are walking our streets, the mere ghosts of themselves.

Martha Quest, who thought of herself as so adventurous, so free and unbounded – the fact was, even the idea of picking up a telephone and making herself known to a new person troubled her: she made excuses, she could not do it.

Why haven’t you been seeing me? A little bird told me that you were all mixed up with the local Reds, and that won’t do you any good, Matty dear. Did you know the police go to their meetings? They’ll put you in prison one of these days.

I’m not one of those writers that sits worrying about posthumous fame.