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We defend ourselves with descriptions and tame the world by generalizing.

Iris Murdoch

Her eyes, which refused to meet mine, had the defensive coldness of those who are determined to lose hope.
IRIS MURDOCH

Determination Eyes Herself Hope
Of 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

Courage Failure Hide Literature Moral Smile
Perhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wavelength of ours all they hear is a continuous scream.
IRIS MURDOCH

Distance Ourselves People
I just enjoy translating, it’s like opening one’s mouth and hearing someone else’s voice emerge.
IRIS MURDOCH

Enjoyment Myself Voice
For most of us, for almost all of us, truth can be attained, if at all, only in silence. It is in silence that the human spirit touches the divine.
IRIS MURDOCH

Divine Human Silence Touch Truth
Those who hope, by retiring from the world, to earn a holiday from human frailty, in themselves and others, are usually disappointed.
IRIS MURDOCH

Disappoint Hope Human World
I’ve felt as if I didn’t exist, as if I were invisible, miles away from the world, miles away. You can’t imagine how much alone I’ve been all my life.
IRIS MURDOCH

Alone Existence Imagination Life Myself World
In philosophy if you aren’t moving at a snail’s pace you aren’t moving at all.
IRIS MURDOCH

Philosophy Speed
White magic is black magic. A less than perfect meddling in the spiritual world can breed monsters for other people, and demons used for good can hang around and make mischief afterwards.
IRIS MURDOCH

Goodness Magic People Perfection Spiritual World
Between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out.
IRIS MURDOCH

Action Philosophy Talk
Guilt keeps people imprisoned in themselves.
IRIS MURDOCH

Guilty One Liner People Prison
But one must do something about the past. It doesn’t just cease to be. It goes on existing and affecting the present, and in new and different ways, as if in some other dimension it too were growing.
IRIS MURDOCH

Different Existence Growth Past Present
What an extraordinary satisfaction there is in cleaning things! (Does the satisfaction depend on ownership? I suspect so.
IRIS MURDOCH

Extraordinary Myself Satisfaction
An experience is richest not talked of.
IRIS MURDOCH

Experience Rich
There is no beyond, there is only here, the infinitely small, infinitely great and utterly demanding present.
IRIS MURDOCH

Beyond Greatness Present
People have obsessions and fears and passions which they don’t admit to. I think every character is interesting and has extremes. It’s the novelist privilege to see how odd everyone is.
IRIS MURDOCH

Character. Priviledge Fear Myself Passion People Thinking

We defend ourselves with descriptions and tame the world by generalizing.

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We defend ourselves with descriptions and tame the world by generalizing.

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