Doris Lessing

I write because I've always written, can't stop. I am a writing animal. The way a silk worm is a silk-producing animal.

Little Tamar, forget the long ago. We are here and we are now, and that is all. We are making a new start.

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

There is no doubt fiction makes a better job of the truth.

It was all wrong, ugly, unhappy and coloured with cynicism, but nothing was tragic, there were no moments that could change anything or anybody. From time to time the emotional lightning flashed and showed a landscape of private misery, and then — we went on dancing.