1,162 Quotes by Iris Murdoch

Rosina had the fierce charm of the rather nasty girl in the fairy-tale who fails to get the prince, but is more interesting than the girl who does, and has better lines too.

I may add here that one of the secrets of my happy life is that i have never made the mistake of learning to drive a car. I have never lacked people, usually women, longing to drive me withersoever I wanted. Why keep bitches and bark yourself?

But jealousy is a dreadful thing, Jessica. It is the most natural to us of the really wicked passions and it goes deep and envenoms the soul. It must be resisted with every honest cunning and with the deliberate thinking of generous thoughts, however abstract and empty these may seem in comparison with that wicked strength... There is no merit, Jessica, in a faithfulness which is poison to you and captivity to him.

Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved

Love doesn't think like that. All right, it's blind as a bat--''Bats have radar. Yours doesn't seem to be working.

The past and present are after all so close, almost one, as if time were an artificial teasing out of a material which longs to join, to interpenetrate, and to become heavy and very small like some of those heavenly bodies scientists tell us of.

Everything is full of gods, ‘ cousin James once said, quoting somebody.

Everything is full of gods, cousin James once said, quoting somebody.

Yes, of course, there's something fishy about describing people's feelings. You try hard to be accurate, but as soon as you start to define such and such a feeling, language lets you down. It's really a machine for making falsehoods. When we really speak the truth, words are insufficient. Almost everything except things like "pass the gravy" is a lie of a sort. And that being the case, I shall shut up. Oh, and... pass the gravy.