“There's always this sense of incredulity that writers feel, because th...” — Doris Lessing Quote

There's always this sense of incredulity that writers feel, because they're usually living flat and ordinary lives, because they have to.

Whenever I met anyone who knew anything, I would bore them stiff until they told me what they knew.

As soon as I got the Nobel Prize my back collapsed and I was in hospital.

With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one - but no one at all - can tell you what to read and when and how.

A writer falls in love with an idea and gets carried away.

I'm just an ordinary, walking-down-the-street, mother of two children who sings for her supper.

The idea of telling a story in reverse destabilises your ordinary moral reactions. That's one of the points of art - to challenge your preconceptions.

I don't feel that no big stone should be put over my head, saying he did this, he did that. Unless there's something that I really did do. I believe I'm just ordinary. And I'd like for people to think of me that way, as just a guy that tried. Wanted to be loved by other people because he loved people.

At the very least, my tastes are out of the ordinary.