Doris Lessing on literary excellence ~

"It is interesting to imagine what our vision of the world would be like had there been no novelists, no storytellers.  Like the dark side of the moon, or the sea floors where fishes still unknown to science live, or reports from unexplored countries where maps said 'Here be monsters'.  Literature makes us all kin, because every tale is a report from people whose differences are only variations on the theme of our humanity.  Without the explorations of writers we would not know them.
"While I read a novel, enjoying all the skills that go with literary excellence - the design, the complexities, the ironies, the insights - I am saying, 'But wait a minute, here's a region of the world (or of society or of psychology) I haven't been in before.'
"If we can say, 'No human behaviour is alien to me', then it is because we know it all from literature."

~ Doris Lessing (Oct. 22, 1919 - Nov. 17, 2012)  English novelist

~ Forward to The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English, Ian Ousby, Cambridge University Press, 1993.