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
What really fascinates me is this need that is so strong now that if you read a work of the imagination you instantly have to say, 'Oh, what this really is is so-and-so,' reducing it to a simple formula.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights our inclination to simplify complex ideas into basic concepts.
Doris Lessing's quote reflects on the human tendency to seek simplicity in the vastness of imagination and creativity. It suggests that when confronted with a work of art or imaginative writing, there is a powerful urge to categorize and reduce it to a formulaic understanding, perhaps as a way to make sense of it. This speaks to a broader theme in philosophy about the relationship between reality and our perceptions, showing how we often struggle to grasp the richness of creative expression and instead opt for superficial summaries that fail to capture its essence.
Themes
ImaginationSimplicityCreativityInterpretationPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about the complexities of artistic expression.
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.
Doris LessingRead
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.
Doris LessingRead
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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