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 MURDOCHTo 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.
More Iris Murdoch Quotes
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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.
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I think being a woman is like being Irish, Everyone says you’re important and nice, but you take second place all the time.
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People have disappointed me and deceived me and let me down.
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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.
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One should go easy on smashing other people’s lies. Better to concentrate on one’s own.
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I felt a deep grief that crouched and stayed still as if it was afraid to move.
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This sort of quiet gazing, which was like a feeding of the heart.
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Art and psychoanalisis give shape and meaning to life and that’s why we adore them. However, life as it is lived has no shape nor meaning, and that’s what I am experiencing right now.
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What a test that is: more than devotion, admiration, passion. If you long and long for someone’s company you love them.
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Our actions are like ships which we may watch set out to sea, and not know when or with what cargo they will return to port.
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Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.
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I’ve been so unhappy for years, so unhappy, I don’t understand how a human being can be so unhappy all the time and still be alive.
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The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.
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Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea.
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Jealousy is perhaps the most involuntary of all strong emotions. It steals consciousness, it lies deeper than thought. It is always there, like a blackness in the eye, it discolours the world.
IRIS MURDOCH