She had known it all the time: I'm so enormously exhausted, so utterly, basically tired, and in fibre of myself, that to know I haven't got to go thr… - Doris Lessing

We are all creatures of the stars and their forces, they make us, we make them, we are part of a dance from which we by no means and not ever may consider ourselves separate. But when the Gods explode, or err, or dissolve into flying clouds of gas, or shrink, or expand, or whatever else their fates might demand, then the minuscule items of their substance may in their small ways express — not protest, which of course is inappropriate to their station in life — but an acknowledgement of the existence of irony: yes, they may sometimes allow themselves — always with respect — the mildest possible grimace of irony.

أنا خطر؟ هذا الشيء الصغير الذي يسهل كسره الذي هو أنا، المتشبث دوماً بحافات الحياة

The automatic reaction of practically any young person is, at once, against authority. That, I think, began in the First World War because of the trenches, and the incompetence of the people on all fronts. I think that a terrible bitterness and anger began there, which led to communism. And now it feeds terrorism. Anyway, that's my thesis. It's very oversimplified, as you can see.