When you're young you think that you're going to sail into a lovely lake of quietude and peace. This is profoundly untrue.
Doris LessingI have a daughter and two grand-daughters and a great grandson in Africa, in Cape Town.
Doris LessingIt is quite easy to remark the absurdities and contradictions of a country's social system from outside its borders, but very difficult if one has been brought up in it.
Doris LessingNone of you [men] ask for anything - except everything, but just for so long as you need it.
Doris LessingAt last I understood that the way over, or through this dilemma, the unease at writing about 'petty personal problems' was to recognize that nothing is personal, in the sense that it is uniquely one's own. Writing about oneself, one is writing about others, since your problems, pains, pleasures, emotionsโand your extraordinary and remarkable ideasโcan't be yours alone. [...] Growing up is after all only the understanding that one's unique and incredible experience is what everyone shares.
Doris LessingI have kept diaries, of course, but they can't be read for quite a long time. I'm always curious about people who are fascinated by writers' lives. It seems to me that we're always in our books, quite nakedly. I wonder, too, does the private life really matter? Who cares what is known about you and what isn't? Even when you make public something that's been private, most people don't get it - not unless they're the same generation and have gone through more or less the same experiences. So, in a sense, we're all private, by definition.
Doris Lessing