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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.

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

Character. Priviledge Fear Myself Passion People Thinking
Let us not waste love, it is rare enough.
IRIS MURDOCH

Enough Love Rare Wasted
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
Between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out.
IRIS MURDOCH

Action Philosophy Talk
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.
IRIS MURDOCH

Greatness Human Race
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
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
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 a test that is: more than devotion, admiration, passion. If you long and long for someone’s company you love them.
IRIS MURDOCH

Company Love Passion Yourself
So we live; a spirit that broods and hovers over the continual death of time, the lost meaning, the unrecaptured moment, the unremembered face, until the final chop that ends all our moments and plunges that spirit back into the void from which it came.
IRIS MURDOCH

Death Live Moments Spirit Time
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

Black Emotional Lie Strong World
Of course reading and thinking are important but, my God, food is important too.
IRIS MURDOCH

Food God Important Reading Thinking
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

Escape Life Love Talk Value
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.
IRIS MURDOCH

Alone Enough Marriage Myself Past Reality Thinking Wrong
Hegel says that Truth is a great word and the thing is greater still. With Dave we never seemed to get past the word.
IRIS MURDOCH

Greatness Past Truth Word
What an extraordinary satisfaction there is in cleaning things! (Does the satisfaction depend on ownership? I suspect so.
IRIS MURDOCH

Extraordinary Myself Satisfaction

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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What a test that is: more than devotion, admiration, passion. If you long and long for someone’s company you love them.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Iris Murdoch Quotes