1,162 Quotes by Iris Murdoch

I've felt as if I didn't exist, as if I were invisible, miles away from the world, miles away. You can't imagine how much alone I've been all my life.

Bellamy was sorry to hurt Clement's feelings, but he so intensely wanted to be alone where he could confront the awful cacophony of his own feelings.

I said, "Your brother is in bed with my wife." I added, "I just took them up some wine in bed.

You are heroic, Mr. Lynch-Gibbon. The knight of infinite humiliation. One does not know whether to kiss your feet or to recommend that you have a good analysis." She said it as one might say "a good thrashing.

You mustn't mind so much. It's all in your head.""Well, I live in my head.

Was it unpleasant?""I don't know," I said. "Everything is so unpleasant nowadays it's hard to tell.

I want to be cut off from people like Marloe. Being a real person oneself is a matter of setting up limits and drawing lines and saying no. I don't want to be a nebulous bit of ectoplasm straying around in other people's lives. That sort of vague sympathy with everybody precludes any real understanding of anybody . . . And it precludes any real loyalty to anybody.

I am sorry," said Monty. "I cannot respond to you in any way. I am just not sufficiently interested in anything you have to say.

How can I even think of such a fate . . . Better to commit murder.