1,162 Quotes by Iris Murdoch

Even if readers claim that they 'take it all with a grain of salt', they do not really. They yearn to believe, and they believe, because believing is easier than disbelieving, and because anything which is written down is likely to be 'true in a way'.

There is a pointlessness of summer London more awful than anything which fogs or early afternoon twilights are able to evoke, a summer mood of yawning and glazing eyes and little nightmare-ridden sleeps in bored and desperate rooms. With this ennui, evil comes creeping through the city, the evil of indifference and sleepiness and lack of care. At such a time the long-fought temptation is wearily yielded to, and the long-dreamt-of crime is with shoulder-shrugging casualness committed at last.

We're just living on our emotions and eating each other.

Some inner organ would give way, her heart would literally break, if she did not see him soon.

There was absolutely nothing that she could do with this huge emotion which she had so suddenly discovered in herself.

She had inhibited her sympathy, one genuine sympathetic impulse would have ruined her.

You can't magic yourself out of the situation, you've got to live it as decently and as grimly as you can.

But now her tears dried because so many terrible emotions and speculations demanded her attention.

One knows what being in love is like and it is a very terrible thing.