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Link Quote Stars Tags Author
ab55de7 I have nobody in the world. I'll kill myself. That's best. Everyone will say, It's for the best that she killed herself, she's better off dead . . . I hate myself so much I could spend hours and hours just screaming with hatred and with the pain of it, oh the pain of it . . . depression the-black-prince iris-murdoch suicidal self-loathing self-hatred Iris Murdoch
221abea I crave for love, everybody does . . . and I've never had a bloody crumb of it--and I've given so much love to people--I can really love people, I can, I let them walk over me--but nobody's ever loved me. love unreciprocated-love unloved the-black-prince iris-murdoch sad unrequited-love Iris Murdoch
d71b68e "It might be most dramatically effective to begin the tale at the moment when Arnold Baffin rang me up and said, "Bradley, could you come round here please, I think I have just killed my wife." opening narrator the-black-prince iris-murdoch dramatic narrative meta storytelling Iris Murdoch
3f8737c I am, I must confess, an obsessive and superstitious letter-writer. When I am troubled I will write any long letter rather than make a telephone call. This is perhaps because I invest letters with magical power. To desiderate something in a letter is, I often irrationally feel, tantamount to bringing it about. A letter is a barrier, a reprieve, a charm against the world, an almost infallible method of acting at a distance. (And, it must be admitted, of passing the buck.) It is a way of bidding time to stop. writing superstitious obsessive the-black-prince iris-murdoch magical letters Iris Murdoch
3c78923 "You've obviously never been in love." "I have actually. And . And--always--without hope--I've never had my love reciprocated ever." love unreciprocated-love the-black-prince iris-murdoch painful in-love sad unrequited-love Iris Murdoch
aff24b1 Only take someone's hand in a certain way, even look into their eyes in a certain way, and the world is changed forever. romantic romance love gazing holding-hands the-black-prince iris-murdoch irrevocable touch Iris Murdoch
995b2e2 I've been so unhappy for years, so unhappy . . . I don't understand how a human being can be so unhappy all the time and still be alive. suffering unending unendurable the-black-prince iris-murdoch unhappy suicidal miserable Iris Murdoch
374a2b7 Let me sleep at last. I've had misery enough in my life. You said there was nowhere to go to. There is death to go to. I've had misery enough in my life. sleep escape desperate the-black-prince iris-murdoch suicidal misery Iris Murdoch
b05d5c1 I know people can be awful dooms for each other. toxic-relationships the-black-prince toxic-people iris-murdoch unhealthy doom Iris Murdoch
8fac1f1 I did not like the look of him at all. Something significantly ill-omened which I could not yet define emanated from him. bad-omens the-black-prince iris-murdoch foreboding Iris Murdoch
2a6306c Then the front doorbell (already too long delayed by my rambling narrative) rang. narrator the-black-prince iris-murdoch self-deprecating narrative meta Iris Murdoch
d510c11 I shall not attempt here to describe my marriage. Some impression of it will doubtless emerge. For the present story, its general nature rather than its detail is important. It was not a success. At first I saw her as a life-bringer. Then I saw her as a death-bringer. Some women are like that. There is a sort of energy which seems to reveal the world: then one day you find you are being devoured. Fellow victims will know what I mean. Possibly I am a natural bachelor. marriage relationships humor the-black-prince iris-murdoch omission Iris Murdoch
69f934e You get so worked up and flowery! You sound as if you were quoting something all the time! humor flowery the-black-prince iris-murdoch quoting Iris Murdoch
4d38cb7 I'm not interested. I never liked him. He's some sort scoundrel. humor scoundrel the-black-prince iris-murdoch dialogue dislike Iris Murdoch
ff36d4b The virtues have secret names: they are, so difficult of access, secret things. Everything that is worthy is secret. secret the-black-prince worthy virtues Iris Murdoch
7e2ecc0 Only stories and magic really endure. magic the-black-prince iris-murdoch lasting stories Iris Murdoch
8d0063a There is a kind of despair involved in creation which I am sure any artist knows all about. In art, as in morality, great things go by the board because at the crucial moment we blink our eyes. When is the crucial moment? Greatness is to recognize it and be able to hold it and to extend it. But for most of us the space between 'dreaming on things to come' and 'it is too late, it is all over' is too tiny to enter. And so we let each thing go, thinking vaguely that it will always be given to us to try again. Thus works of art, and thus whole lives of men, are spoilt by blinking and moving quickly on. I often found that I had ideas for stories, but by the time I had thought them out in detail they seemed to me hardly worth writing, as if I had already 'done' them: not because they were bad, but because they already belonged to the past and I had lost interest. My thoughts were soon stale to me. Some things I ruined by starting them too soon. Others by thinking them so intensely in my head that they were over before they began. Projects would change in a second from hazy uncommitted dreams into unsalvageable ancient history. Whole novels existed only in their titles. writer writing inspiration crucial-moment elusive the-black-prince iris-murdoch creative-process Iris Murdoch
2dc9b4b 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. metaphor unknowable the-black-prince subconscious-mind subconscious Iris Murdoch
1d7c738 Only sometimes at night when I think that you live now and are somewhere, I shed tears. parted separated the-black-prince iris-murdoch crying separation tears sad Iris Murdoch
c593622 There was a shadowy light, not exactly twilight, but an uncertain vivid yet hazy illumination, wherein people walked like spirits, bathed in light and not revealed. light the-black-prince iris-murdoch description Iris Murdoch
58df7d4 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. londoners onlookers passerby weirdies the-black-prince iris-murdoch london Iris Murdoch
23b5103 And I was upset to find how really reluctant I was to leave my little flat. It was as if I was almost frightened. Spasms of prophetic homesickness pierced me as I rearranged the china and dusted it with my handkerchief, obsessive visions of burglaries and desecrations. fear hermetic homebody recluse the-black-prince iris-murdoch anxiety homesickness worry Iris Murdoch
6211c2c The room had the rather sinister tedium which some bedrooms have, a sort of weary banality which is a reminder of death. A dressing table can be a terrible thing. humor the-black-prince iris-murdoch morbid description Iris Murdoch
4753e09 I struggled with a nebulous work which seemed now a , now a vast novel, wherein a hero not unlike myself pursued, amid ghostly incidents, a series of reflections about life and art. writer writing the-black-prince iris-murdoch struggling meta plot Iris Murdoch
d1cf6e8 Give yourself to these great works of art. They suffice for a lifetime. enduring great-works-of-art works-of-art the-black-prince iris-murdoch lifetime art Iris Murdoch
2eb33b1 I want to be cut off from people like Marloe. Being a real person oneself is a matter of setting up limits and drawing lines and saying no. I don't want to be a nebulous bit of ectoplasm straying around in other people's lives. That sort of vague sympathy with everybody precludes any real understanding of anybody . . . And it precludes any real loyalty to anybody. understanding relationships discerning setting-limits the-black-prince iris-murdoch loner loyalty Iris Murdoch
587585c The world is perhaps ultimately to be defined as a place of suffering. Man is a suffering animal, subject to ceaseless anxiety and pain and fear. suffering the-human-condition the-black-prince iris-murdoch worldview nihilism the-world pessimism Iris Murdoch
7d9be3a I just want to serve and help people and be good to everybody, only it always goes wrong somehow--I think about suicide all the time, every bloody day I want to die and stop this torture, but I go crawling on . . . I'm so Christ-awful bloody lonely I could scream with it for hours on end. loneliness desperate rejected unlucky the-black-prince iris-murdoch selfless suicidal Iris Murdoch
f79e3d0 Most friendships are a sort of frozen and undeveloping semi-hostility. relationships friendship hostility the-black-prince iris-murdoch stagnant resentment Iris Murdoch
ce22cd8 What the cold light showed me was that my situation was simply unlivable. I wanted, with a desire greater than any desire which I had ever conceived could exist without instantly killing its owner by spontaneous combustion, something which I simply could not have. unlivable the-black-prince iris-murdoch wanting suicidal hopeless unrequited-love Iris Murdoch
4aecd94 And all the time my very soul would travel with her, invisible and crying soundlessly with pain. I had acquired a dimension of suffering which would poison and devour my whole being, as far as I could see, forever. pain suffering unending unendurable the-black-prince unspoken soul unrequited-love Iris Murdoch
7a4b017 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. humor deep-breathing panic-attack the-black-prince iris-murdoch dissociation Iris Murdoch
db16a6c I'm not like other people, my life just doesn't work, it never has. life lament unlucky the-black-prince iris-murdoch outsider difference Iris Murdoch
ace7549 But I live, I , with an absolutely continuous sense of failure. I am always defeated, always. dejected unrelenting the-black-prince iris-murdoch low-self-esteem despairing failure Iris Murdoch
5a2b9d2 Those who occasion loss of dignity are hard to forgive. loss-of-dignity the-black-prince iris-murdoch unforgivable grudge Iris Murdoch
073aec2 How fearful that dark shadow is when we catch sight of it in the life of another. No wonder those at whom that black arrow is aimed so often turn and flee. How unendurable it can be, the love another bears us. I would never persecute my darling with that dread knowledge. From now onward until the world ended everything must remain, although utterly changed, exactly as it was before. love the-black-prince iris-murdoch selfless unspoken unrequited-love Iris Murdoch
2ff31c8 How could it be that I had actually kissed her cheek without enveloping her, without becoming her? How could I at that moment have refrained from kneeling at her feet and howling? kiss love passionate-love howling the-black-prince iris-murdoch dramatic soul-mates desire Iris Murdoch
74035e9 Sometimes one feels suddenly doomed by fate. fate doomed the-black-prince iris-murdoch premonition foreboding Iris Murdoch
f128833 Some people are just 'diminishers' and 'spoilers' for others. I suppose almost everybody diminishes someone. A saint would be nobody's spoiler. toxic-relationships the-black-prince toxic-people Iris Murdoch
4f4ad79 Oh my life is so awful, it's just so awful to be me, you don't know what it's like waking every morning and finding the whole horror of being yourself still there. depression identity life the-black-prince iris-murdoch unhappy self-loathing trapped horror Iris Murdoch
59fe39b Those who cry out the truth to an indifferent world too often weary, fall silent or come to doubt their own wit. in-vain unheeded the-black-prince iris-murdoch Iris Murdoch
e82208d I felt so ashamed with them because everything in their life was going so well and they were so sort of successful. I couldn't talk about what I wanted with them and they were always in a hurry. jealous not-wanted out-of-place the-black-prince iris-murdoch outsider unspoken inferiority shame Iris Murdoch
0a69862 She was a spoiler, a needler, an underminer, a diminisher, simply by instinct. destructive harmful the-black-prince toxic toxic-people undermining iris-murdoch Iris Murdoch
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