Doris Lessing:
Maiden name: Doris May Tayler.
(Kermanshah (Persia), 22 October 1919 – London, 17 November 2013)
British-Zimbabwean writer, who also wrote under the name Jane Somers. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007. Her work reflects a deep commitment to political and human issues, but is also autobiographical, describing her childhood experiences in Africa, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe).
Whenever one person stands up and says: “Wait a second, this is wrong”, it helps other people to do the same.
Learn to be okay with people not knowing your side of the story.
You have nothing to prove to anyone.
Artists are the traditional interpreters of dreams and nightmares.
Dreams have always been my friend, full of information, full of warnings.
If you have nothing, you are free to choose among dreams and fantasies.
The freedom of women was achieved by two things; One, the Pill. Two… by labour-saving devices like the washing machine. By science, not feminism.
Words. words. i play with words, hoping that some combination, even a chance combination, will say what i want.
This saying expresses the struggle of a writer—or any person trying to communicate—to find the right words.
It suggests that:
– Language can feel inadequate when emotions or ideas are complex.
– Writing is often a process of experimenting with words.
– Sometimes meaning appears unexpectedly, almost by chance.
– The speaker wants words to capture something deeply felt but difficult to express.
🧠 In Simple Terms:
Doris Lessing is saying:
> “I keep trying different words, hoping that eventually they will express exactly what I mean.”
📚 Likely Origin:
– The quote is commonly attributed to Doris Lessing and is often associated with her novel “The Golden Notebook” published in 1962.
– Page numbers may vary depending on the edition, so if you need it for citation, it is best to verify it in a specific copy of the book.
✍️ Author:
– Doris Lessing
– British-Zimbabwean novelist, essayist, and Nobel Prize in Literature winner in 2007.
Very few people really care about freedom, about liberty, about the truth, very few. Very few people have guts, the kind of guts on which a real democracy has to depend. Without people with that sort of guts a free society dies or cannot be born.
