Doris Lessing

I'm always astounded at the way we automatically look at what divides and separates us. We never look at what people have in common ... this is a disease of the mind, the way I see it.

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

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

What matters most is that we learn from living.

I do not think writers ought ever to sit down and think they must write about some cause, or theme... If they write about their own experiences, something true is going to emerge.

Sometimes I pick up a book and I say: Well, so you've written it first, have you? Good for you. O.K., then I won't have to write it.

It was all wrong, ugly, unhappy and coloured with cynicism, but nothing was tragic, there were no moments that could change anything or anybody. From time to time the emotional lightning flashed and showed a landscape of private misery, and then — we went on dancing.

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