704 Quotes About Iris-murdoch

There is so much grit in the bottom of the container, almost all our natural preoccupations are low ones, and in most cases the rag-bag of consciousness is only unified by the experience of great art or of intense love. Neither of these was relevant to my messy and absent-minded goings-on.

That this world is a place of horror must affect every serious artist and thinker, darkening his reflection, ruining his system, sometimes actually driving him mad. Any seriousness avoids this fact at its peril, and the great ones who have seemed to neglect it have only done so in appearance.

Perhaps the reality is in the suffering. But it can't be. Love promises happiness. Art promises happiness. Yet it isn't exactly a promise . . .

We think with our body, with its yearnings and its shrinkings and its ghostly walkings.

All dreams are sinister.

He felt as if he were being used, as if Willy were using him as a hard neutral surface against which to crush, like insects, the thoughts which haunted him.

One's mind is such an old rubbish heap. All sorts of little bits of machinery start up.

He wished he was not always young again in his dreams, it made waking up so sad.

He felt removed from reality.