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Doris Lessing 1919–2013
English writer 

  1. There's only one real sin, and that is to persuade oneself that the second-best is anything but the second-best.
    Golden Notebook (1962)
  2. What of October, that ambiguous month, the month of tension, the unendurable month?
    Martha Quest (1952)
  3. In university they don’t tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.
    Martha Quest (1952)
  4. If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air.
    Particularly Cats (1967)
  5. There is no doubt fiction makes a better job of the truth.
    Under My Skin (1994) ch. 14