We re all muddlers. The thing is to see is when one's got to stop muddling. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
The most potent and sacred command which can be laid upon any artist is the command: wait. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
Love is the perception of individuals. Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
We defend ourselves with descriptions and tame the world by generalizing. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
It's easier to sell junk when you're known than works of genius when you're unknown. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
Our destiny can be examined, but it cannot be justified or totally explained. We are simply here. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
There is nothing like early promiscuous sex for dispelling life's bright mysterious expectations. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
Falling out of love is chiefly a matter of forgetting how charming someone is. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
One doesn't have to get anywhere in a marriage. It's not a public conveyance. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
“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 Image
Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods. — 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 all the… — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
being homosexual doesn't determine a man's whole character any more than being heterosexual does. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
All artists dream of a silence which they must enter, as some creatures return to the sea to spawn. — Iris Murdoch Copy Share Image
“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 Image
