Iris Murdoch Quotes - Page 7

Quotes about:

• Dogs are very different from cats in that they can be images of human virtue. They are like us.

  Iris Murdoch

  Dog, Cat, Different

  Iris Murdoch (2003). “From a Tiny Corner in the House of Fiction: Conversations with Iris Murdoch”, p.155, Univ of South Carolina Press

  7 Copy quote

• Of course reading and thinking are important but, my God, food is important too. How fortunate we are to be food-consuming animals. Each meal should be a treat and one ought to bless every day which brings with it a good digestion and the precious gift of hunger.

  Iris Murdoch

  Happiness, Reading, Animal

  Iris Murdoch (2001). “The Sea, The Sea”, p.30, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

• There is nothing like the bootless solitude of those who are caged together.

  Iris Murdoch

  Solitude, Together, Caged

  Iris Murdoch (2003). “The Black Prince”, p.89, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• Trains induce such terrible anxiety. They image the possibility of total and irrevocable failure. They are also dirty, rackety, packed with strangers, an object lesson in the foul contingency of life: the talkative fellow-traveller, the possibility of children.

  Iris Murdoch

  Children, Dirty, Anxiety

  Iris Murdoch (2003). “The Black Prince”, p.69, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

• The theatre is a tragic place, full of endings and partings and heartbreak.

  Iris Murdoch

  Theatre, Tragic, Parting

  Iris Murdoch (2013). “The Green Knight”, p.58, Open Road Media

  5 Copy quote

• How rarely can happiness be really innocent and not triumphant, not an insult to the deprived.

  Iris Murdoch

  Happiness, Insult, Innocent

  Iris Murdoch (2008). “A Word Child”, p.7, Random House

  5 Copy quote

• Art is a kind of artificial memory and the pain which attends all serious art is a sense of that factitiousness.

  Iris Murdoch

  Art, Pain, Memories

  Iris Murdoch (2003). “The Black Prince”, p.326, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• Reading and writing and the preservation of language and its forms and the kind of eloquence and the kind of beauty which the language is capable of is terribly important to the human beings because this is connected to thought.

  Iris Murdoch

  Reading, Writing, Important

  "Fictional character: Iris Murdoch". "Iris", www.imdb.com. 2001.

  4 Copy quote

• A death is the most terrible of facts.

  Iris Murdoch

  Death, Facts, Terrible

  4 Copy quote

• any writer is inevitably going to work with his own anxieties and desires. If the book is any good it has got to have in it the fire of a personal unconscious mind.

  Iris Murdoch

  Book, Fire, Anxiety

  Iris Murdoch (2003). “From a Tiny Corner in the House of Fiction: Conversations with Iris Murdoch”, p.127, Univ of South Carolina Press

  4 Copy quote

• Probably no adult misery can be compared with a child's despair.

  Iris Murdoch

  Children, Despair, Adults

  5 Copy quote

• The notion that one will not survive a particular catastrophe is, in general terms, a comfort since it is equivalent to abolishing the catastrophe.

  Iris Murdoch

  Survival, Comfort, Literature

  "The Message to the Planet". Book by Iris Murdoch, p. 532, 1989.

  7 Copy quote

• there is a natural tribal hostility between the married and the unmarried. I cannot stand the shows so often quite instinctively put on by married people to insinuate that they are not only more fortunate but in some way more moral than you are.

  Iris Murdoch

  People, Way, Moral

  Iris Murdoch (2003). “The Black Prince”, p.38, Penguin

  11 Copy quote

• The priesthood is a marriage. People often start by falling in love, and they go on for years without realizing that love must change into some other love which is so unlike it that it can hardly be recognized as love at all.

  Iris Murdoch

  Love, Change, Fall

  Iris Murdoch (1977). “Henry and Cato”, Viking Pr

  17 Copy quote

• we are such inward secret creatures, that inwardness the most amazing thing about us, even more amazing than our reason. but we cannot just walk into the cavern and look around. most of what we think we know about our minds is pseudo-knowledge. we are all such shocking poseurs, so good at inflating the importance of what we think we value.

  Iris Murdoch

  Thinking, Secret, Mind

  Iris Murdoch (1999). “A Severed Head, The Black Prince, The Sea, The Sea”

  4 Copy quote

• My heart was beating like an army on the march.

  Iris Murdoch

  Heart, Army, March

  Iris Murdoch (1977). “Under the Net”, p.181, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

• What makes you imagine ... that anything of importance can be taught in a school?

  Iris Murdoch

  School, Taught, Imagine

  Iris Murdoch (1956). “The flight from the enchanter”, Viking Pr

  4 Copy quote

• We defend ourselves by descriptions and tame the world by generalizing.

  Iris Murdoch

  World, Description

  "A Severed Head, The Black Prince, The Sea, The Sea".

  6 Copy quote

• Jealousy is the most dreadfully involuntary of all sins.

  Iris Murdoch

  Jealousy, Jealous, Sin

  Iris Murdoch (2003). “The Black Prince”, p.217, Penguin

  10 Copy quote

• Eating reveals the characteristic grossness of the human race and also the in-built failure of its satisfactions. We arrive eager, we stuff ourselves and we go away depressed and disappointed and probably feeling a bit queasy into the bargain. It's an image of the déçu in human existence. A greedy start and a stupefied finish. Waiters, who are constantly observing this cycle, must be the most disillusioned of men.

  Iris Murdoch

  Men, Race, Feelings

  Iris Murdoch (2001). “A Fairly Honourable Defeat”, p.209, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

• A long marriage is very unifying, even if it's not ideal, and those old structures must be respected.

  Iris Murdoch

  Long, Structure, Ideals

  Iris Murdoch (2001). “The Sea, The Sea”, p.161, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

• until I have been able to bury my head so deep in dear London that I can forget that I have ever been away I am inconsolable.

  Iris Murdoch

  London, Able, Forget

  Iris Murdoch (1977). “Under the Net”, p.7, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Magic, Theatre, Wonderful

  5 Copy quote

• confession ran in the family.

  Iris Murdoch

  Confession, Ran

  Iris Murdoch (2001). “The Bell”, p.97, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• A letter is a barrier, a reprieve, a charm against the world, an almost infallible method of acting at a distance.

  Iris Murdoch

  Distance, Acting, World

  Iris Murdoch (2003). “The Black Prince”, p.65, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

Page 7 of 8

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin