Famously cranky Golden Notebook author Doris Lessing is 89 and frankly doesn't give a rat's that she won last year's Nobel Prize for Literature. She likes to talk about how she's burned out on writing and loves to complain—and is therefore our favorite Old. This Sunday, Lessing wrote an essay about her typical day for the Times of London: "When I’m not talking, I read." And everyone, irritatingly, thinks she knows the meaning of life:

After my morning lie-down I read the Telegraph and The Independent, then I might scribble a few letters. The fact is that ever since I won the Nobel, all I do is talk — whether I know anything about the subject or not. I once gave a talk at a university in New York. At the end, a girl asked: “Now, Mrs Lessing, tell me the meaning of life.” I replied: “What makes you think I know it?” She said: “Come on. Don’t be like that. Don’t hold out on us.”

[via Bookninja]