Iris Murdoch Quotes

“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.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince

“As I lay there, listening to the soft slap of the sea, and thinking these sad and strange thoughts, more and more and more stars had gathered, obliterating the separateness of the Milky Way and filling up the whole sky. And far far away in that ocean of gold, stars were silently shooting and falling and finding their fates, among these billions and billions of merging golden lights. And curtain after curtain of gauze was quietly removed, and I saw stars behind stars behind stars, as in the magical Odeons of my youth. And I saw into the vast soft interior of the universe which was slowly and gently turning itself inside out. I went to sleep, and in my sleep I seemed to hear a sound of singing.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Sea, the Sea

“I am looking out of my window in an anxious and resentful state of mind, oblivious to my surroundings, brooding perhaps on some damage done to my prestige. Then suddenly I observe a hovering kestrel. In a moment everything is altered. The brooding self with its hurt vanity has disappeared. There is nothing now but kestrel. And when I return to thinking of the other matter it seems less important”
― Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good

“Si se entiende por eternidad, no la duración temporal sin fin, sino la ausencia de tiempo, vive eternamente el que vive en el presente.”
― Iris Murdoch, Bruno's Dream

“Don't tease me. Everything wounds me now except perfect kindness.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Green Knight

“Only sometimes at night when I think that you live now and are somewhere, I shed tears.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince

“I felt so ashamed with them because everything in their life was going so well and they were so sort of successful. I couldn't talk about what I wanted with them and they were always in a hurry.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince

“I must admit that I am in a state of utter wretchedness and have been for a long time. I didn't know that such extreme unhappiness could continue for so long.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good

“But she felt that she had to see him or she would die.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good

“No good would come of all these fine intentions.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Sacred and Profane Love Machine

“I am out of the saga, he thought. He had a heavy sense of being left in total isolation; everyone had withdrawn from him and the person who could most have helped him was pre-empted by another.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good

“There's no point in talking it over. It would only make things worse. There's nothing to say. I just love you. That's all of it."

"That's half of it," said Ducane. "Possibly over dinner I might tell you the other half.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good

“I am just a past with no present.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good

“Miles, que estaba de espaldas a Danby, levantó la cabeza del libro. Miró primero la cabeza inclinada de Diana y después la de Lisa. Cuando Diana comenzó a alzar la cabeza, Miles volvió su atención al libro. Diana miró primero la cabeza inclinada de Miles y después la cabeza inclinada de Lisa. Cuando ésta empezó a levantar la cabeza, Diana volvió su atención al libro. Lisa miró primero la cabeza inclinada de Diana y después la de Miles. Cuando éste comenzó a levantar la cabeza otra vez, Lisa volvió su atención al libro. Reinaba un profundo silencio.”
― Iris Murdoch

“I want you to be able to see me, and as my love for you is so much of me (all of me, making me more than myself) then you must see that too.”
― Iris Murdoch, Henry and Cato

“Of course you don't know yourself, lucky old you. I just know myself too bloody well.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince

“Good-bye to the past, with its mysteries which would never be fully unfolded.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Sacred and Profane Love Machine

“It's so sad, all our house seems broken apart, everyone is going.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good

“You are sad."

"I am always sad.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good

“He felt sad, sad.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good

“There was absolutely nothing that she could do with this huge emotion which she had so suddenly discovered in herself.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good

“He wanted to take her in his arms, he wanted to be utterly revealed to her, he wanted her to understand.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good

“One knows what being in love is like and it is a very terrible thing.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good

“It's not even like memory. It's all just there."

"All the time, Willy?"

"Every hour, every minute.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good

“Year after year he wondered if he should go back and year after year felt it all recede from him past hope, past endeavour . . . He could not find his way back there.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good

“I am sunk in the wreck of myself . . . I live in myself like a mouse inside a ruin.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good

“Why did I ever leave them, what was I fleeing from? What spoilt scene that I could not then endure?”
― Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good

“It was too late to go back. There was a hand which could never, in grace and healing, be laid upon him now.”
― Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good

“If you want to eat spaghetti you must use your teeth.’ Wittgenstein."

"I don't think Wittgenstein really said any of those things you say he said!”
― Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat

“The conversation in the Old Brompton Road was more like an experience of the inferno, but lovers are accustomed to fire.”
― Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat