Quotes by Doris Lessing

About Doris Lessing:

Doris May Lessing is Singing (1950), the sequence of five novels collectively called Children of Violence (1952–69), The Golden Notebook (1962), The Good Terrorist (1985), and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos: Archives (1979–1983).
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I wasn't an active feminist in the '60s, never have been.

Doris Lessing

My mother died happily of a stroke in her seventies.

Doris Lessing

The critics slap labels on you and then expect you to talk inside their terms.

Doris Lessing

What I really can't stand about the feminist revolution is that it produced some of the smuggest, most unselfcritical people the world has ever seen. They are horrible.

Doris Lessing

I'll be pleased when I'm dead. That will let me off worrying about all these wars.

Doris Lessing

I am your original autodidact.

Doris Lessing

It is very enjoyable, writing a story. You get this idea. It takes hold of you. And then you spend day and night thinking about how to do it. And then you do it. And much later, you think, 'Oh, yes. That's an interesting question.'

Doris Lessing

I would not be at all surprised to find out... that the dimensions of buildings affect us in ways we don't guess.

Doris Lessing

They can't give a Nobel to someone who's dead so I think they were probably thinking they had better give it to me now before I popped off.

Doris Lessing

As soon as I got the Nobel Prize my back collapsed and I was in hospital.

Doris Lessing

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

Doris Lessing

I have ideas that I will probably never write now.

Doris Lessing

I was a nursemaid. And it was pretty boring.

Doris Lessing

I haven't got the energy to write now.

Doris Lessing

I never thought of London in terms of possible heroes - of course, there are thousands. It's a very talented city.

Doris Lessing

I thought that would go without saying, that if a mother gives up her children, it's very painful.

Doris Lessing

I don't write well when I'm sitting there sweating about every single phrase.

Doris Lessing

Some people obtain fame, others deserve it.

Doris Lessing

I've won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one. I'm delighted to win them all, the whole lot.

Doris Lessing

It usually takes me a year to do a book. A year or eighteen months.

Doris Lessing

I'm just a story teller.

Doris Lessing

Author Bio

  • NameDoris Lessing
  • DescriptionBritish novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer
  • BornOctober 22, 1919
  • DiedNovember 17, 2013
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionWriter; Poet; Novelist; Playwright; Autobiographer
  • WorksThe Grass Is Singing; The Golden Notebook; The Good Terrorist; The Cleft
  • AwardsNobel Prize In Literature; Somerset Maugham Award; Austrian State Prize For European Literature; WH Smith Literary Award; Grinzane Cavour Prize; James Tait Black Memorial Prize; David Cohen Prize; Prince Of Asturia Literary Prize