The Good Terrorist Quotes

“This world is run by people who know how to do things. They know how things work. They are *equipped.* Up there, there's a layer of people who run everything. But we -- we're just peasants. We don't understand what's going on, and we can't do anything. ...You, running about playing at revolutions, playing little games, thinking you're important. You're just peasants, you'll never *do* anything.”
― Doris Lessing, The Good Terrorist

“It was not a question of Philip's having "lost hold." He had never grasped hold. Something had not happened that should have happened: a teacher, or someone, should have said: This one, Philip Fowler, he must be a craftsman, do something small, and delicate and intricate; we must get him trained for that. Look how perfectly he does things! He can't fold a shirt or arrange some chips and a piece of fish on a plate without making a picture of it.

It had not happened.”
― Doris Lessing, The Good Terrorist

“Oh, no, I'm not saying she isn't a nut -- she is -- but I've noticed before that sometimes someone like that behaves quite ordinarily with everybody, manages everything, you'd never think she was a nut, but there's just one person, with that person, she's out of control. It makes you wonder,' said Alice.”
― Doris Lessing, The Good Terrorist

“Oh, yes, Alice did know that she forgot things, but not how badly, or how often. When her mind started to dazzle and to puzzle, frantically trying to lay hold of something stable, then she always at once allowed herself -- as she did now -- to slide back into her childhood, where she dwelt pleasurably on some scene or other that she had smoothed and polished and painted over and over again with fresh colour until it was like walking into a story that began, 'Once upon a time there was a little girl called Alice, with her mother, Dorothy. One morning Alice was in the kitchen with Dorothy, who was making her favourite pudding, apple with cinnamon and brown sugar and sour cream, and little Alice said, 'Mummy, I am a good girl, aren't I?”
― Doris Lessing, The Good Terrorist

“When she was older, after ten or so, she could tell she was being useful, but as a small child she was tolerated (only just, she knew) by this whirlwind of efficiency that was her mother organizing a party. Still she insisted on arranging fruit on a dish, or disposing ashtrays around the house, while her mother reduced her pace to Alice's. At least while "helping," Alice did not feel quite so much as if she were a tiny creature on top of a great wave, frantically and hopelessly signalling to her mother, who stood indifferently on the shore, not noticing her.”
― Doris Lessing, The Good Terrorist

“There was a certain struggling fury that went with being jobless, and persevering, and being turned down, that was different from simply being jobless.”
― Doris Lessing, The Good Terrorist

“Go away, Alice,” said Alice’s mother. “Just go away. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to hear from you. Try to understand that you can’t say the things to people you said to me this morning and then just turn up, as if nothing had happened, with a bright smile, for another handout.” The line went dead.”
― Doris Lessing, The Good Terrorist

“كانت التوجّهات التي تمَّ اختيارها هي :
√ الأولى ، مشكلة البطالة - التي لابدّ مِن استثمارها.
√ الثانية ، كراهية الشعب البريطاني عامةً لسياسة الحكومة حول التسلُّح النووي.
√ الثالثة ، رفض الشعب البريطاني الناشئ - و الذي لا يزال غير معبَّرٍ عنه - لسياسة حزب المحافظين في شمال إيرلندا”
― Doris Lessing, The Good Terrorist