The stinting poverty in which they lived was unbearable; it was destroying them. It did not mean that there was not enough to eat: it meant that ever… - Doris Lessing

There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag — and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement.

As for Anna she was thinking: If I join in now, in a what’s-wrong-with-men session, then I won’t go home, I’ll stay for lunch and all afternoon, and Molly and I will feel warm and friendly, all barriers gone. And when we part, there’ll be a sudden resentment, a rancour — because after all, our real loyalties are always to men, and not to women…Anna nearly sat down, ready to submerge herself. But she did not. She thought: I want to be done with it all, finished with the men vs. women business, all the complaints and the reproaches and the betrayals. Besides, it’s dishonest. We’ve chosen to live a certain way, knowing the penalties, or if we didn’t we know now, so why whine and complain…and besides, if I’m not careful, Molly and I will descend into a kind of twin old-maidhood where we sit around saying to each other, Do you remember how that man, what-was-his-name said that insensitive thing, it must have been in 1947…

I stood looking down out of the window. The street seemed miles down. Suddenly I felt as if I'd flung myself out of the window. I could see myself lying on the pavement. Then I seemed to be standing by the body on the pavement. I was two people. Blood and brains were scattered everywhere. I knelt down and began licking up the blood and brains