71e40f1
|
One forgot, one forgot. What hold had one on the past? The present moment was a little travelling in darkness.
|
|
past
|
Iris Murdoch |
98b659c
|
And do stop sneezing. It annoys me so much when people sneeze.
|
|
|
Iris Murdoch |
db5ae62
|
Your coldness has ruined my life. All right, you didn't mean it, all right I was a schoolgirl, but you could have been kinder to someone who said they loved you, you could have been gentle and grateful.
|
|
declaration-of-love
harsh
iris-murdoch
rejection
ruined-lives
the-message-to-the-planet
|
Iris Murdoch |
f67684d
|
When the sun was set I might perhaps go to sleep. I never let myself sleep during the day. Daytime sleep is a cursed slumber from which one wakes in despair. The sun will not tolerate it. If he can he will pry under your eyelids and prise them apart; and if you hang black curtains at your windows he will lay siege to your room until it is so stifling that at last you stagger with staring eyes to the window and tear back the curtains to see ..
|
|
|
Iris Murdoch |
8338d61
|
How mysterious night and day are, this endless procession off dark and light....I think such sad thoughts - of people in trouble and afraid, all lonely people all prisoners.
|
|
|
Iris Murdoch |
22523a2
|
It is necessary to write, that much is clear, and to write in a way quite unlike any way which I have employed before.
|
|
self-deception
truth
writers
writing
|
Iris Murdoch |
b72fe87
|
As soon as any idea is a consolation the tendency to falsify it becomes strong: hence the traditional problem of preventing the idea of God from degenerating in the believer's mind.
|
|
|
Iris Murdoch |
ee0fe07
|
Even if readers claim that they 'take it all with a grain of salt', they do not really. They yearn to believe, and they believe, because believing is easier than disbelieving, and because anything which is written down is likely to be 'true in a way'.
|
|
façades
fiction
readers
reading
writing
|
Iris Murdoch |
2c24070
|
The self, the place where we live, is a place of illusion. Goodness is connected with the attempt to see the unself, to see and to respond to the real world in the light of a virtuous consciousness. This is the non-metaphysical meaning of the idea of transcendence to which philosophers have so constantly resorted in their explanations of goodness. 'Good is a transcendent reality' means that virtue is the attempt to pierce the veil of selfis..
|
|
good
human-nature
illusion
real
transcendence
|
Iris Murdoch |
46e3320
|
If I see her she may kill hope.
|
|
|
Iris Murdoch |
9dc2c37
|
The same virtues, in the end, the same virtue (love), are required throughout, and fantasy (self) can prevent us from seeing a blade of grass just as it can prevent us from seeing another person. An increasing awareness of 'goods' and the attempt (usually only partially successful) to attend to them purely, without self, brings with it an increasing awareness of the unity and interdependence of the moral world. One-seeking intelligence is t..
|
|
fantasy
good
illusion
intellect
love
self
unity
vision
|
Iris Murdoch |
375eb56
|
Your love for me does not exist in the real world. Yes, it is love, I do not deny it. But not every love has a course to run, smooth or otherwise, and this love has no course at all . . . But that is remote from love and remote from ordinary life. As real people we do not exist for each other.
|
|
figurative-language
impossible-love
iris-murdoch
love
unrequited-love
|
Iris Murdoch |
d7a8c6f
|
I could not see other human beings at present.
|
|
alone
antisocial
iris-murdoch
misanthropic
recluse
seclusion
|
Iris Murdoch |
4bb865e
|
He felt as if he were under an intolerable physical strain, as if his body were likely at any moment to fly to pieces. Other strange physical symptoms came to trouble him. An unpleasant odour lingered in his nostrils, as if he could literally smell the sulphur of the pit; and he had from time to time the curious illusion that his flesh was turning black. He had to look continually at his hands to be sure that it was not so. Nightmares troub..
|
|
|
Iris Murdoch |
39eda6c
|
And I thought, rolling my head to and fro between my hands in anguish, oh if only it could have worked somehow for us two.
|
|
if-only
in-another-life
iris-murdoch
star-crossed-lovers
the-sea-the-sea
unrequited-love
|
Iris Murdoch |
6388a0b
|
We shall meet, but as strangers. It is the end of an era. A whole part of my life is torn away.
|
|
iris-murdoch
parting
sad
separation
strangers
the-end-of-an-era
the-green-knight
|
Iris Murdoch |
3c675f3
|
Yet on the other hand, I did manage to write, and without more than occasional repining, during my years of bondage, and I would not, as some unsatisfied writers do, blame my lack of productivity upon my lack of time.
|
|
|
Iris Murdoch |
ad314a7
|
Love is no respecter of ages, everyone knows that.
|
|
|
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."
|
|
dramatic
iris-murdoch
meta
narrative
narrator
opening
storytelling
the-black-prince
|
Iris Murdoch |
add2c7c
|
Disapproving of things is all right. But you mustn't disapprove of people. It cuts you off.
|
|
|
Iris Murdoch |
7851f1c
|
I had deluded myself throughout by the idea of reviving a secret love which did not exist at all.
|
|
iris-murdoch
love
secret-love
the-sea-the-sea
unrequited-love
|
Iris Murdoch |
ea951d7
|
He dreamt...he was a huge white egg floating in the sea of turquoise blue, and he was everything that there was.
|
|
|
Iris Murdoch |
46198ad
|
I have always attributed a great importance to eyes. How mysteriously expressive those damp orbs can be; the eyeball does not change and yet it is the window of the soul. And colour in eyes is, in its nature and inherence, quite unlike colour in any other substance. Mr Osmand had grey eyes, but his eyes were hard and speckled like Aberdeen granite, while Tommy's were clear and empty like light smoke.
|
|
|
Iris Murdoch |
f2e104d
|
Don't tease me. Everything wounds me now except perfect kindness.
|
|
iris-murdoch
kindness
sensitive
teasing
the-green-knight
|
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 ..
|
|
iris-murdoch
letters
magical
obsessive
superstitious
the-black-prince
writing
|
Iris Murdoch |
b8cabb6
|
Your infatuation will end in tears.
|
|
heartbreak
infatuation
iris-murdoch
tears
the-message-to-the-planet
warning
|
Iris Murdoch |
87809f9
|
There is a time limit to how long a spirited young person can be kept in cold storage.
|
|
iris-murdoch
limbo
on-the-shelf
spirited
youth
|
Iris Murdoch |
3e32f51
|
And she did seem then to go to sleep instantly: the quick flight into oblivion of the chronically unhappy person.
|
|
depression
iris-murdoch
oblivion
sleep
the-sea-the-sea
unhappy
|
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.
|
|
gazing
holding-hands
iris-murdoch
irrevocable
love
romance
romantic
the-black-prince
touch
|
Iris Murdoch |
062fa4e
|
You can't magic yourself out of the situation, you've got to live it as decently and as grimly as you can.
|
|
grim
iris-murdoch
magic
the-message-to-the-planet
trapped
|
Iris Murdoch |
98756c2
|
I know girls aren't supposed to tell, but I've got to tell--just in case you should fail to love me because you never knew how much I loved you. I want not to have to say later--I wish I'd told him.
|
|
declaration-of-love
gender-roles
henry-and-cato
if-only
iris-murdoch
love
romance
romantic-love
unrequited-love
|
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.
|
|
iris-murdoch
miserable
suffering
suicidal
the-black-prince
unending
unendurable
unhappy
|
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.
|
|
desperate
escape
iris-murdoch
misery
sleep
suicidal
the-black-prince
|
Iris Murdoch |
b05d5c1
|
I know people can be awful dooms for each other.
|
|
doom
iris-murdoch
the-black-prince
toxic-people
toxic-relationships
unhealthy
|
Iris Murdoch |
0882153
|
In a century or two this planet will have been destroyed by external cosmic forces or by the senseless activity of the human race. Human life is a freak phenomenon, soon to be blotted out. That is a consoling thought. Meanwhile we are surrounded by strange invisible entities, possibly your angels." "I hope so." "Ah, you think they are good, they be good, there is no good, the tendency to evil is overwhelming. One has only to think of the ..
|
|
end-of-the-world
humor
iris-murdoch
misanthrope
pessimistic
recluse
relationship
the-green-knight
|
Iris Murdoch |
842ef2f
|
God lives and works in history. The outward mythology changes, the inward truth remains the same.
|
|
mythology
|
Iris Murdoch |
c51fc3e
|
La gente no suele saber aplicar la filosofia. Dudo de que ni siquiera los filosofos sepan hacerlo. --La gente puede usar conceptos morales lo mismo que tu has usado ahora el concepto de la verdad para convencerme. Cualquiera puede hacerlo. --Quiza. Pero creo que la filosofia moral es algo que resulta desesperanzadamente personal. No puede ser comunicado. <>, ha dicho Wittgenstein.
|
|
moral
verdad
wittgenstein
|
Iris Murdoch |
364cdb3
|
Of course one never knows about other people's loves, and I would certainly never know about James's.
|
|
love
loves
other-people
private
the-sea-the-sea
unknowable
|
Iris Murdoch |
1453138
|
If there is any fruitless mental torment which is greater than that of jealousy it is perhaps remorse. Even the pains of loss may be less searching; and often of course these agonies combine, as now they did for me. I say remorse not repentance. I doubt if I have ever experienced repentance in a pure form; perhaps it does not exist in a pure form. Remorse contains guilt, but helpless hopeless guilt which knows of no cure for the painful bit..
|
|
guilt
iris-murdoch
jealousy
remorse
repentance
the-sea-the-sea
torment
|
Iris Murdoch |
e7c0f3e
|
You talk of freedom -- I've never had it! I've been lonely and miserable and in despair, and you want me to consent to all that all over again!
|
|
freedom
iris-murdoch
lonely
misery
the-message-to-the-planet
|
Iris Murdoch |
6c00b72
|
And suffering we know breeds images, it breeds the most beautiful images of all.
|
|
contradictory
contrasting
henry-and-cato
images
inspiration
iris-murdoch
juxtaposition
suffering
|
Iris Murdoch |
36261b7
|
I took him for a kind of buffoon. Now I see he is a devil.
|
|
devil
enemy
first-impression
iris-murdoch
the-green-knight
underestimated
|
Iris Murdoch |
d1cf6e8
|
Give yourself to these great works of art. They suffice for a lifetime.
|
|
art
enduring
great-works-of-art
iris-murdoch
lifetime
the-black-prince
works-of-art
|
Iris Murdoch |
b5e3676
|
Sometimes I feel I am crammed with demons.
|
|
demons
internal-struggle
iris-murdoch
possessed
the-message-to-the-planet
tormented
|
Iris Murdoch |