How boring these emotions are that we're caught in and can't get free of, no matter how much we want to... - Doris Lessing

"I hated the 1960's feminists," she says. "They were dogmatists, you see. In comes ideology, and out goes common sense. This is my experience of life."

Yes, my child, you must read. You must read everything that comes your way. It doesn’t matter what you read at first, later you’ll learn discrimination. Schools are no good, Matty, you learn nothing at school. If you want to be anything, you must educate yourself.

[On her first marriage ] I don't think marriages are like that now. It's when you walk into a role. The life was all laid down, what you ate, everything you did, and I went through it all as if it were a role in a play, really, and I hated it bitterly.