1,162 Quotes by Iris Murdoch

A few people paused to look at him, but Londoners were by now so accustomed to 'weirdies' of all kinds that his ritual aroused little interest.

The had met at a party. Falling in love surprised them both.

What a queer gamble our existence is. We decide to do A instead of B and then the two roads diverge utterly and may lead in the end to heaven and to hell. Only later one sees how much and how awfully the fates differ. Yet what were the reasons for the choice? They may have been forgotten. Did one know what one was choosing? Certainly not.

I tried deep breathing, but seemed to lose contact with myself between each breath, so that the next one was always an emergency. I began to feel faint.

You know when things get inside you and you can't stop going round and round the same piece of misery.

Partly, I still felt something of the sheer unholy excitement which I had experienced initially at the thought of a friend (especially this one) in trouble.

I have never lived in Ireland, though I retain a sentimental sense of connexion with that poor bitch of a country.

That's how vile i am! I live Ireland, I breathe Ireland, and Christ how I loathe it, I wish I were a bloody Scot, that's how bloody awful it is being Irish!

They had become, year by year, month by month, mysterious to her, her love for them an extended pain, a web or field of force, of which she felt at times the almost breaking tension.