The Memoirs of a Survivor Quotes

“we were all experts at making a great deal out of very little, even while we all still had a lot, and were still being incited by advertisements to spend and use and discard”
― Doris Lessing, The Memoirs of a Survivor

“yes of course this is not new, has been going on throughout history... Could there be any real difference when this 'ruling class' used words like justice, fair play, equity, order, or ven socialism? -used them, might even have believed in them, or believed in them for a time; but meanwhile everything fell to pieces while still, as always, the administrators lived cushioned against the worst, trying to talk away, wish away, legislate away, the worst- for to admit that it was happening was to admit to themselves useless, admit the extra security they enjoyed was theft and not payment for services rendered...”
― Doris Lessing, The Memoirs of a Survivor

“This is the sort of thing we accepted as normal. Yet for all of us there were moments when the game we were all agreeing to play simply could not stand up to events: we would be gripped by feelings of unreality, like nausea. Perhaps this feeling, that the ground was dissolving under our feet, was the real enemy… or we believed it to be so. Perhaps our tacit agreement that nothing much— or at least nothing irrecoverable— was happening was because for us the enemy was Reality, was to allow ourselves to know what was happening.”
― Doris Lessing, The Memoirs of a Survivor

“أن المرء لابد له من التغلب على الحاجة وذلك بواسطة الضحك.”
― Doris Lessing, The Memoirs of a Survivor

“إننا في عملية التذكر نقر أولا بأوجه الشبه بيننا لا بأوجه الاختلاف.”
― Doris Lessing, The Memoirs of a Survivor