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Starting a novel is opening a door on a misty landscape; you can still see very little but you can smell the earth and feel the wind blowing.

Iris Murdoch

The most essential and fundamental aspect of culture is the study of literature, since this is an education in how to picture and understand human situations.
IRIS MURDOCH

Education Fundamental Human Literature Understand
In philosophy if you aren’t moving at a snail’s pace you aren’t moving at all.
IRIS MURDOCH

Philosophy Speed
People have disappointed me and deceived me and let me down.
IRIS MURDOCH

Disappoint Myself People
Youth is a marvelous garment.
IRIS MURDOCH

One Liner Youth
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
The 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 MURDOCH

Goodness Honesty Human Learning Magic Place Wonderful
An experience is richest not talked of.
IRIS MURDOCH

Experience Rich
Starting a novel is opening a door on a misty landscape; you can still see very little but you can smell the earth and feel the wind blowing.
IRIS MURDOCH

Book Feeling Start Yourself
To lose somebody is to lose not only their person but all those modes and manifestations into which their person has flowed outwards; so that in losing a beloved one may find so many things, pictures, poems, melodies, places lost too: Dante, Avignon, a song of Shakespeare’s, the Cornish sea.
IRIS MURDOCH

Lose Person Photograph Poem Sea
Every man needs two women, a quiet home-maker, and a thrilling nymph.
IRIS MURDOCH

Man Need Quiet Relationship Woman
Falling out of love is chiefly a matter of forgetting how charming someone is.
IRIS MURDOCH

Beautiful Break Up Fall Forget Love
One 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 MURDOCH

Better Happiness Life Oneself Quick Secret
We 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 MURDOCH

Fantasy Greatness Illusion Life Live Reality Wisdom World
That doesn’t sound like you, you ride every wave. There is one that will drown me
IRIS MURDOCH

Inspirational Myself Oneself Sound Yourself
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
Freedom may be a value in politics, but it is not a value in morals.
IRIS MURDOCH

Freedom Moral Politics Value

Starting a novel is opening a door on a misty landscape; you can still see very little but you can smell the earth and feel the wind blowing.

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Starting a novel is opening a door on a misty landscape; you can still see very little but you can smell the earth and feel the wind blowing.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Iris Murdoch Quotes