1,162 Quotes by Iris Murdoch

Then the front doorbell (already too long delayed by my rambling narrative) rang.

Some people are just 'diminishers' and 'spoilers' for others. I suppose almost everybody diminishes someone. A saint would be nobody's spoiler.

I did love her in a way, but it was under the sign of doom.

Only stories and magic really endure.

Of course we have an 'unconscious mind' and this is partly what my book is about. But there is no general chart of that lost continent. Certainly not a 'scientific' one.

I know that human life is horrible. I know that it is utterly unlike art. I have no religion except my own task of being. Conventional religions are dream stuff. Always a world of fear and horror lies but a millimetre away. Any man, even the greatest, can be broken in a moment and has no refuge. Any theory which denies this is a lie.

I did not like the look of him at all. Something significantly ill-omened which I could not yet define emanated from him.

One can't whistle up happiness. It's a gift of nature and I haven't got it.

I have been on the whole a lucky man. And I would say that even now. Perhaps especially I would say it now.