Doris Lessing

There's an unconscious bias in our society: girls are wonderful; boys are terrible. And to be a boy, or young man, growing up, having to listen to all this, it must be painful. ”

I think a lot of romanticizing has gone on with the women's movement. ”

All my friends' mothers were appalling women. ”

I don't think that the feminist movement has done much for the characters of women. ”

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

There was a time when young people respected learning and literature and now they don't. ”

What society doesn't realize is that in the past, ordinary people respected learning. They respected books, and they don't now, or not very much. That whole respect for serious literature and learning has disappeared. ”

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

I would not be at all surprised to find out... that the dimensions of buildings affect us in ways we don't guess. ”

You can't be a Red if you're married to a civil servant. ”