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 MURDOCHPeople have disappointed me and deceived me and let me down.
More Iris Murdoch Quotes
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Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one’s luck.
IRIS MURDOCH -
I felt a deep grief that crouched and stayed still as if it was afraid to move.
IRIS MURDOCH -
How different each death is, and yet it leads us into the self-same country, that country which we inhabit so rarely, where we see the worthlessness of what we have long pursued and will so soon return to pursuing.
IRIS MURDOCH -
Those who hope, by retiring from the world, to earn a holiday from human frailty, in themselves and others, are usually disappointed.
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There is no beyond, there is only here, the infinitely small, infinitely great and utterly demanding present.
IRIS MURDOCH -
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 -
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 -
An experience is richest not talked of.
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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 -
People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.
IRIS MURDOCH -
Time, like the sea, unties all knots.
IRIS MURDOCH -
Hegel says that Truth is a great word and the thing is greater still. With Dave we never seemed to get past the word.
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I don’t think I can marry, I’m not fit for it, I’m not real enough. That’s the trouble. I’m a puppet that’s realised what’s wrong with itself and it’s horrible. I’m propped up somewhere all alone, watching the real people go past. I’m propped up crying in a corner.
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That doesn’t sound like you, you ride every wave. There is one that will drown me
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I feel I’m at the end of something – everything is going to be different – and terrible.
IRIS MURDOCH -
Youth is a marvelous garment.
IRIS MURDOCH -
Let us not waste love, it is rare enough.
IRIS MURDOCH -
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 -
Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved.
IRIS MURDOCH -
Every man needs two women, a quiet home-maker, and a thrilling nymph.
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Guilt keeps people imprisoned in themselves.
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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.
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Anything that consoles is fake.
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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 -
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.
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The talk of lovers who have just declared their love is one of life’s most sweet delights. Each vies with the other in humility, in amazement at being so valued. The past is searched for the first signs and each one is in haste to declare all that he is so that no part of his being escapes the hallowing touch.
IRIS MURDOCH