...She thinks, for the hundredth time, that in their emotional life all these intelligent men use a level so much lower than anything they use for work, that they might be different creatures.
Doris LessingWhat is charm then? The free giving of a grace, the spending of something given by nature in her role of spendthrift ... something extra, superfluous, unnecessary, essentially a power thrown away.
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 LessingI wonder why do wars suddenly start and suddenly stop, and why do we Brits and you Americans get involved in some of them and not in others? Is it possible that the arms manufacturers quietly foment wars without us knowing? Dropping bombs is a very profitable business for them. Gore Vidal was talking about this the other day, and he made a lot of sense. Whenever American policy seems inscrutable, he said, remember the military-industrial complex. He's the one who should have been President.
Doris LessingAnd it does no harm to repeat, as often as you can, 'Without me the literary industry would not exist: the publishers, the agents, the sub-agents, the sub-sub-agents, the accountants, the libel lawyers, the departments of literature, the professors, the theses, the books of criticism, the reviewers, the book pages- all this vast and proliferating edifice is because of this small, patronized, put-down and underpaid person.'
Doris Lessing