1,162 Quotes by Iris Murdoch

The absence of the loved person is so absolute.

He could go back and take her in his arms. If only he knew how to do this. But they had lost the language of their affections, they had lost the style.

I don't think I can marry, I'm not fit for it, I'm not real enough. That's the trouble. I'm a puppet that's realised what's wrong with itself and it's horrible. I'm propped up somewhere all alone, watching the real people go past. I'm propped up crying in a corner.

Ludens experienced, as an extra pain, an intimation of the happiness he might have felt in such a place.

I'm just one long disappointment.

Ludens thought, why can't I do that, why can't I just ask a woman to hold my hand, why can't I ask Franca to!

He . . . felt as if, wanting to be needed by everyone, he were merely becoming some sort of semi-invisible messenger.

Ludens felt again that special curious anguish caused by glimpses of a happiness he would have felt if only things were different — which could be different, perhaps could easily be different — but somehow maddeningly were not.

Ludens felt that everyone around him was living in the present, a place where he certainly could not live.