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.
Doris LessingWhen old settlers say 'One has to understand the country,' what they mean is, 'You have to get used to our ideas about the native.' They are saying in effect, 'Learn our ideas, or otherwise get out; we don't want you.'
Doris LessingDoes political correctness have a good side? Yes, it does, for it makes us re-examine attitudes, and that is always useful. The trouble is that, with all popular movements, the lunatic fringe so quickly ceases to be a fringe; the tail begins to wag the dog. For every woman or man who is quietly and sensibly using the idea to examine our assumptions, there are twenty rabble-rousers whose real motive is desire for power over others. The fact that they see themselves as antiracists or feminists or whatever does not make them any less rabble-rousers.
Doris Lessing