Quotes by Doris Lessing

People are too emotional about communism, or rather, about their own Communist Parties, to think about a subject that one day will be a subject for sociologists. Which is, the social activities that go on as a direct or indirect result of the existence of a Communist Party. People or groups of people who don’t even know it have been inspired, or animated, or given a new push into life because of the Communist Party, and this is true of all countries where there has been even a tiny Communist Party. In our own small town, a year after Russia entered the war, and the left had recovered because of it, there had come into existence (apart from the direct activities of the Party which is not what I am talking about) a small orchestra, readers’ circles, two dramatic groups, a film society, an amateur survey of the conditions of urban African children which, when it was published, stirred the white conscience and was the beginning of a long-overdue sense of guilt, and half a dozen discussion groups on African problems. For the first time in its existence there was something like a cultural life in that town. And it was enjoyed by hundreds of people who knew of the communists only as a group of people to hate. And of course a good many of these phenomena were disapproved of by the communists themselves, then at their most energetic and dogmatic. Yet the communists had inspired them because a dedicated faith in humanity spreads ripples in all directions.

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 dont seem to see this.

Yknow, theres a very interesting state of Anarchy up there. Everythings cracking up. That lot of tycoons; they dont believe in anything. They remind me of the white people in Central Africa. They used to say, Well, of course the blacks will drive us into the sea in fifty years time. They used to say it cheerfully. In other words, We know that what were doing is wrong.

A public library is the most democratic thing in the world. What can be found there has undone dictators and tyrants: demagogues can persecute writers and tell them what to write as much as they like, but they cannot vanish what has been written in the past, though they try often enough...People who love literature have at least part of their minds immune from indoctrination. If you read, you can learn to think for yourself.

You simply dont get to be wise, mature, etc., unless youve been a raving cannibal for thirty years or so.

You have to read a book at the right time for you, and I am sure this cannot be insisted on too often, for it is the key to the enjoyment of literature.

The point is, that the function of the novel seems to be changing; it has become an outpost of journalism; we read novels for information about areas of life we don’t know — Nigeria, South Africa, the American army, a coal-mining village, coteries in Chelsea, etc. We read to find out what is going on. One novel in five hundred or a thousand has the quality a novel should have to make it a novel — the quality of philosophy. I find that I read with the same kind of curiosity most novels, and a book of reportage. Most novels, if they are successful at all, are original in the sense that they report the existence of an area of society, a type of person, not yet admitted to the general literate consciousness. The novel has become a function of the fragmented society, the fragmented consciousness. Human beings are so divided, are becoming more and more divided, and more subdivided in themselves, reflecting the world, that they reach out desperately, not knowing they do it, for information about other groups inside their own country, let alone about groups in other countries. It is a blind grasping out for their own wholeness, and the novel-report is a means towards it.

It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important.

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

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

Laughter is by definition healthy.

What matters most is that we learn from living.

Growing up is after all only the understanding that ones unique and incredible experience is what everyone shares.

Thats what learning is. You suddenly understand something you understood all your life but in a new way.

Think wrongly if you please but in all cases think for yourself.

Women are the cowards they are because they have been semi-slaves for so long. The number of women prepared to stand up for what they really think feel experience with a man they are in love with is still very small.

What society doesnt realize is that in the past, ordinary people respected learning. They respected books, and they dont now, or not very much. That whole respect for serious literature and learning has disappeared.

We use our parents like recurring dreams, to be entered into when needed.

What is a hero without love for mankind.

I see every book as a problem that you have to solve. That is what dictates the form you use. Its not that you say, I want to write a science fiction book. You start from the other end, and what you have to say dictates the form of it.