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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.

Iris Murdoch

There is no substitute for the comfort supplied by the utterly taken-for-granted relationship.
IRIS MURDOCH

Comfortable Relationship
I have nobody in the world. I’ll kill myself. That’s best. Everyone will say, It’s for the best that she killed herself, she’s better off dead. I hate myself so much I could spend hours and hours just screaming with hatred and with the pain of it, oh the pain of it.
IRIS MURDOCH

Best Hate Kill Myself Pain World
What an extraordinary satisfaction there is in cleaning things! (Does the satisfaction depend on ownership? I suspect so.
IRIS MURDOCH

Extraordinary Myself Satisfaction
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
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
One of the secrets of a happy life is continous small treats.
IRIS MURDOCH

Food Greatness Happiness Oneself Reward Secret
Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea.
IRIS MURDOCH

Book Ideas Perfection
Let us not waste love, it is rare enough.
IRIS MURDOCH

Enough Love Rare Wasted
Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one’s luck.
IRIS MURDOCH

Amazing Commitment Marriage Oneself Writing
I just enjoy translating, it’s like opening one’s mouth and hearing someone else’s voice emerge.
IRIS MURDOCH

Enjoyment Myself Voice
I took a deep breath, however, and followed my rule of never speaking frankly to women in moments of emotion. No good ever comes of this.
IRIS MURDOCH

Breathe Emotional Goodness Moments Myself Rule Woman
Freedom may be a value in politics, but it is not a value in morals.
IRIS MURDOCH

Freedom Moral Politics Value
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
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
Jealousy is the most dreadfully involuntary of all sins.
IRIS MURDOCH

Crime Sin Spiritual
Emotions really exist at the bottom of the personality or at the top. in the middle they are acted. This is why all the world is a stage.
IRIS MURDOCH

Act Emotion Existence Personality World

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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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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