The Golden Notebook for some reason surprised people but it was no more than you would hear women say in their kitchens every day in any country. … I… - Doris Lessing

I am sure everyone has had the experience of reading a book and finding it vibrating with aliveness, with colour and immediacy. And then, perhaps some weeks later, reading it again and finding it flat and empty. Well, the book hasn't changed: you have.

In the writing process, the more the story cooks, the better. The brain works for you even when you are at rest. I find dreams particularly useful. I myself think a great deal before I go to sleep and the details sometimes unfold in the dream.

I am a person who continually destroys the possibilities of a future because of the numbers of alternative viewpoints I can focus on the present.