“A
public library is the most democratic thing in the world. What can be found
there has undone dictators and tyrants: demagogues can persecute writers and
tell them what to write as much as they like, but they cannot vanish what has
been written in the past, though they try often enough...People who love
literature have at least part of their minds immune from indoctrination. If you
read, you can learn to think for yourself.”— British novelist
and
Nobel laureate Doris Lessing (1919-2013), in The Pleasure of Reading: 43 Writers on the Discovery of Reading and the Books That Inspired Them,
edited by Antonia Fraser (2015)
Showing posts with label Doris Lessing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Doris Lessing. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
Quote of the Day (Doris Lessing, on Libraries and Democracy)
“A
public library is the most democratic thing in the world. What can be found
there has undone dictators and tyrants: demagogues can persecute writers and
tell them what to write as much as they like, but they cannot vanish what has
been written in the past, though they try often enough...People who love
literature have at least part of their minds immune from indoctrination. If you
read, you can learn to think for yourself.”— British novelist
and
Nobel laureate Doris Lessing (1919-2013), in The Pleasure of Reading: 43 Writers on the Discovery of Reading and the Books That Inspired Them,
edited by Antonia Fraser (2015)
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Exchange of the Day (Doris Lessing and Studs Terkel)
Lessing, in 1969, appearing on Terkel’s radio show: “You do still have gangsters [in Chicago], don't you?”
Terkel: “Yes, but these days they're mostly in business, or politics.”
(The death of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Terkel died leaves the worlds of radio and oral history infinitely poorer. And, despite the comment to Lessing, he proved to be a longer-lasting—and certainly more beloved—institution in his city than its gangsters.)
Terkel: “Yes, but these days they're mostly in business, or politics.”
(The death of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Terkel died leaves the worlds of radio and oral history infinitely poorer. And, despite the comment to Lessing, he proved to be a longer-lasting—and certainly more beloved—institution in his city than its gangsters.)
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