There is a gulf fixed between those who can sleep and those who cannot. It is one of the greatest divisions of the human race.
IRIS MURDOCHThere is a gulf fixed between those who can sleep and those who cannot. It is one of the greatest divisions of the human race.
IRIS MURDOCHThe absolute yearning of one human body for another particular body and its indifference to substitutes is one of life’s major mysteries.
IRIS MURDOCHWe live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality says Iris Murdoch. But given the state of the world, is it wise?
IRIS MURDOCHThe theatre is certainly a place for learning about the brevity of human glory: oh all those wonderful glittering absolutely vanished pantomime! Now I shall abjure magic and become a hermit : put myself in a situation where I can honestly say that I have nothing else to do but to learn to be good.
IRIS MURDOCHLove is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.
IRIS MURDOCHEvery persisting marriage is based on fear’, said Peregrine. ‘Fear is fundamental, you dig down in human nature and what’s at the bottom? Mean spiteful cruel self-regarding fear, whether it makes you to put the foot in it or whether it makes you to cower.
IRIS MURDOCHPeople have disappointed me and deceived me and let me down.
IRIS MURDOCHThere is no beyond, there is only here, the infinitely small, infinitely great and utterly demanding present.
IRIS MURDOCHI feel I’m at the end of something – everything is going to be different – and terrible.
IRIS MURDOCHOf course reading and thinking are important but, my God, food is important too.
IRIS MURDOCHGuilt keeps people imprisoned in themselves.
IRIS MURDOCHOne of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats, and if some of these can be inexpensive and quickly procured so much the better.
IRIS MURDOCHSo we live; a spirit that broods and hovers over the continual death of time, the lost meaning, the unrecaptured moment, the unremembered face, until the final chop that ends all our moments and plunges that spirit back into the void from which it came.
IRIS MURDOCHAnything that consoles is fake.
IRIS MURDOCHCoffee, unless it is very good and made by somebody else, is pretty intolerable at any time.
IRIS MURDOCHOf course this chattering diary is a facade, the literary equivalent of the everyday smiling face which hides the inward ravages of jealousy, remorse, fear and the consciousness of irretrievable moral failure. Yet such pretenses are not only consolations but may even be productive of a little ersatz courage.
IRIS MURDOCH