I am a person who continually destroys the possibilities of a future because of the numbers of alternative viewpoints I can focus on the present.
Doris LessingRead
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. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty-and vise versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Read what interests you at the right time in your life, rather than out of obligation or trend.
Doris Lessing emphasizes the importance of personal choice in reading. She suggests that one should approach reading as a pleasurable and enriching experience, rather than a chore dictated by societal expectations. There is an understanding that our interests evolve over time; therefore, the books that may not resonate with us at one stage of life might later reveal profound insights when we are more mature. Lessing encourages readers to trust their instincts about what to read and when, advocating for a more intuitive and personal relationship with literature.
Themes
ReadingBooksPersonal ChoiceTimingLiterature
In practice
Example use cases
In a book club meeting to encourage diverse reading habits.
More from Doris Lessing
All quotes →In the writing process, the more the story cooks, the better. The brain works for you even when you are at rest. I find dreams particularly useful. I myself think a great deal before I go to sleep and the details sometimes unfold in the dream.
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Humanity's legacy of stories and storytelling is the most precious we have. All wisdom is in our stories and songs. A story is how we construct our experiences. At the very simplest, it can be: 'He/she was born, lived, died.' Probably that is the template of our stories - a beginning, middle, and end. This structure is in our minds.
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There is a great line of women stretching out behind you into the past, and you have to seek them out and find them in yourself and be conscious of them.
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The World War I, I'm a child of World War I. And I really know about the children of war. Because both my parents were both badly damaged by the war. My father, physically, and both mentally and emotionally. So, I know exactly what it's like to be brought up in an atmosphere of a continual harping on the war.
Doris LessingRead
You should write, first of all, to please yourself. You shouldn't care a damn about anybody else at all. But writing can't be a way of life - the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.
Doris LessingRead
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