But children can't be a center of life and a reason for being. They can be a thousand things that are delightful, interesting, satisfying, but they can't be a well-spring to live from. Or they shouldn't be.
Doris LessingI've won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one. I'm delighted to win them all, the whole lot.
Doris LessingBut there is no doubt that to attempt a novel of ideas is to give oneself a handicap: the parochialism of our culture is intense. For instance, decade after decade bright young men and women emerge from their universities able to say proudly: 'Of course I know nothing about German literature.' It is the mode. The Victorians knew everything about German literature, but were able with a clear conscience not to know much about the French.
Doris LessingWhen the print revolution occurred 400 years ago, human beings lost a certain mental capacity, including a sense of memory. In Africa today, you meet people who still carry everything in their heads, the way we used to. We rely on telephone books, address books. We have to look up everything.
Doris LessingIn Shanghai, I saw great contrasts. On one street there would be impressive shops selling copies of the latest word in glamorous European fashion, and around the corner on a back street there were poor families crammed into one room with a naked light bulb. One evening I heard a Chinese family singing "Happy Birthday." It was weird. You would have thought that they'd have their own happy birthday song. Every dominant society in the world - whether it's French or British or American - imposes its culture on less developed societies.
Doris Lessing