We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
emotions really exist at the bottom of the personality or at the top. in the middle they are acted. this is why… — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
We defend ourselves with descriptions and tame the world by generalizing. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
... a less than perfect meddling in the spiritual world can breed monsters for other people. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
We defend ourselves by descriptions and tame the world by generalizing. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
A letter is a barrier, a reprieve, a charm against the world, an almost infallible method of acting at a distance. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
Those who hope, by retiring from the world, to earn a holiday from human frailty, in themselves and others, are usually disappointed. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
Falling out of love is very enlightening. For a short while you see the world with new eyes. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
Intense mutual erotic love, love which involves with the flesh all the most refined sexual being of the spirit, which reveals and… — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
... half the world starves. What a planet. And the eating, if you're lucky enough to do any. Stuffing pieces of dead… — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
Love is the source of our greatest errors; but when it is even partially refined it is the energy and the passion… — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
... he felt himself to be one of them, who can live neither in the world nor out of it. They are… — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
We are all the judges and the judged, victims of the casual malice and fantasy of others, and ready sources of fantasy… — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
Falling out of love is chiefly a matter of forgetting how charming someone is. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share
One doesn't have to get anywhere in a marriage. It's not a public conveyance. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share
“I think being a woman is like being Irish... Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the time.” — Iris Murdoch Copy Share
Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share
emotions really exist at the bottom of the personality or at the top. in the middle they are acted. this is why all the… — Iris Murdoch Copy Share
I have used the word "attention," which I borrow from Simone Weil, to express the idea of a just and loving gaze directed upon… — Iris Murdoch Copy Share
Starting a novel is opening a door on a misty landscape; you can still see very little but you can smell the earth and… — Iris Murdoch Copy Share
Art and morality are, with certain provisos…one. Their essence is the same. The essence of both of them is love. Love is the perception… — Iris Murdoch Copy Share
being homosexual doesn't determine a man's whole character any more than being heterosexual does. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share
All artists dream of a silence which they must enter, as some creatures return to the sea to spawn. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share
“Oh if only I could take my mother away and never know of these things again. But it was impossible, the machine would go… — Iris Murdoch Copy Share
I live, I live, with an absolutely continuous sense of failure. I am always defeated, always. Every book is the wreck of a perfect… — Iris Murdoch Copy Share
