Search quotes

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
e0209fd	How absolute the knave is!		Iris Murdoch
267eb88	So was she on the side of dragons and indifferent to the fate of princesses?	fairy-tales iris-murdoch princesses the-green-knight tropes	Iris Murdoch
57fbc06	Where's your house?' 'Kempsford Gardens, by West Brompton tube station.		Iris Murdoch
f8cec30	but it was love in an inferno: that terrible relentless withholding of forgiveness.		Iris Murdoch
e018b0e	If only he could be loved by somebody new.		Iris Murdoch
b9f3d6b	Bradley, I wish I'd understood that stuff you spouted about Hamlet." "Forget it. No high theory about Shakespeare is any good, not because he's so divine but because he's so human. Even great art is jumble in the end." "So the critics are just stupid?" "It needs no theory to tell us this! One should simply try to like as much as one can."		Iris Murdoch
d9c4744	It's all a dream, he thought, one goes through life in a dream, it's all too hard.		Iris Murdoch
85e72cf	All the effort which he had put into making himself seemed vanity now that there were no more purposes		Iris Murdoch
f73bedf	Sometimes he would have liked to pray, but what is prayer if there is nobody there?		Iris Murdoch
6d5fba1	But thinking about wickedness usually just comforts.		Iris Murdoch
da1dfbd	Brooding about the past is so often fantasy of how one might have won and resentment that one didn't. It is that resentment which one so often mistakes for repentance		Iris Murdoch
93683ce	But, and especially with Linda's help, he had decided that, like most other people, he was not made for reality.		Iris Murdoch
6f2422b	Our planet is a freak which we shall destroy by our own wicked senseless activities in the next century. Our history will very soon come to an end. Now that God is dead, we are at last presented with the truth, yes, the truth remains, but it is on a short lead. Anyway, we are nothing and it matters not what we do.	doomsday end-of-the-world iris-murdoch meaningless nihilism pessimistic the-green-knight	Iris Murdoch
fc6f639	I said, "Your brother is in bed with my wife." I added, "I just took them up some wine in bed."	dialogue humor iris-murdoch witty	Iris Murdoch
cd34b6b	He had lived a chaste life really. It was his accusers and not his crimes which troubled him.		Iris Murdoch
0e5eab1	Bellamy found simply a task of amazing difficulty. It was as if ordinary human life were a mobile machine full of holes, crannies, spaces, apertures, fissures, cavities, lairs, into one of which Bellamy was required to (and indeed desired to) fit himself. The machine moved slowly, resembling a train, or sometimes a merry-go-round. But as soon as Bellamy got on (or got in), the machine would soon eject him, sending him spinning back to a ..	depression despair iris-murdoch left-out place-in-the-world spectator the-green-knight work	Iris Murdoch
db42014	Kant abolished God and made man God in His stead. We are still living in the age of the Kantian man, or Kantian man-god. Kant's conclusive exposure of the so-called proofs of the existence of God, his analysis of the limitations of speculative reason, together with his eloquent portrayal of the dgnity of rational man, has had results which might possibly dismay him. How recognizable, how familiar to us, is the man so beautifully portrayed i..		Iris Murdoch
f0bf99e	She felt intense disappointment, even a kind of guilt, as if she had missed something, perhaps forever. He had been there, she could have spoken to him. Could she call out now, cry his name? It was impossible.	finality guilt iris-murdoch missed-chances missed-opportunity sad the-green-knight	Iris Murdoch
6ed5b79	You're doing your thing, why can't I do my thing? I must be me even if I suffer for it.	henry-and-cato identity iris-murdoch self self-expression suffer	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 foreboding iris-murdoch the-black-prince	Iris Murdoch
2447f1e	We are all potentially demons to each other, but some close relationships are saved from this fate.	demons iris-murdoch metaphor relationships the-sea-the-sea toxic-relationships	Iris Murdoch
2a6306c	Then the front doorbell (already too long delayed by my rambling narrative) rang.	iris-murdoch meta narrative narrator self-deprecating the-black-prince	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. Possib..	humor iris-murdoch marriage omission relationships the-black-prince	Iris Murdoch
69f934e	You get so worked up and flowery! You sound as if you were quoting something all the time!	flowery humor iris-murdoch quoting the-black-prince	Iris Murdoch
c4f14e4	You see, nobody cares about me except you. You don't know what that's like. You've always had people who cared. You've always had . I've never had anybody. No wonder I feel frustrated.	frustrated henry-and-cato iris-murdoch lonely unloved	Iris Murdoch
08af27f	I want you to be able to me, and as my love for you is so much of me (all of me, making me more than myself) then you must see that too.	henry-and-cato identity iris-murdoch love seen self the-beloved	Iris Murdoch
4d38cb7	I'm not interested. I never liked him. He's some sort scoundrel.	dialogue dislike humor iris-murdoch scoundrel the-black-prince	Iris Murdoch
209a32c	Nothing will bring me peace except revenge.	peace revenge the-green-knight	Iris Murdoch
a68af5b	Anywhere is dangerous if you carry danger with you.	dangerous inner-turmoil iris-murdoch the-message-to-the-planet troubled	Iris Murdoch
711df23	The trouble with people nowadays is they don't know how to do nothing.	idle inactivity iris-murdoch	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 virtues worthy	Iris Murdoch
7e2ecc0	Only stories and magic really endure.	iris-murdoch lasting magic stories the-black-prince	Iris Murdoch
25e3de8	How easily one is hurt. Or is it only I who am so stupidly vulnerable.	iris-murdoch sensitive the-green-knight vulnerable	Iris Murdoch
d7adc61	Now, when she felt so deeply connected to him, they were finally estranged.	connection estranged iris-murdoch star-crossed-lovers the-message-to-the-planet unrequited-love	Iris Murdoch
33c175b	I'm not young. I've never had any youth.	burdens iris-murdoch old-soul sad the-message-to-the-planet youth	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..	creative-process crucial-moment elusive inspiration iris-murdoch the-black-prince writer writing	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 subconscious subconscious-mind the-black-prince unknowable	Iris Murdoch
1d7c738	Only sometimes at night when I think that you live now and are somewhere, I shed tears.	crying iris-murdoch parted sad separated separation tears the-black-prince	Iris Murdoch
66bc4be	Beyond her declaration of love she could not see. But as she rehearsed the intensity of her passion she thought that he , when the time came, . The desire to, at the right time, him became, as the years moved forward toward that time, increasingly painful, like a poisoned wound that must heal itself by breaking open. She thought in anguish of the times, the recent times, when she could have told him, and had been afraid to, and had cl..	if-only iris-murdoch loss missed-chance missed-opportunity suffering the-green-knight unrequited-love unspoken	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.	description iris-murdoch light the-black-prince	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.	iris-murdoch london londoners onlookers passerby the-black-prince weirdies	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.	anxiety fear hermetic homebody homesickness iris-murdoch recluse the-black-prince 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.	description humor iris-murdoch morbid the-black-prince	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.	iris-murdoch meta plot struggling the-black-prince writer writing	Iris Murdoch

How absolute the knave is!

Iris Murdoch

267eb88

So was she on the side of dragons and indifferent to the fate of princesses?

fairy-tales iris-murdoch princesses the-green-knight tropes

Iris Murdoch

57fbc06

Where's your house?' 'Kempsford Gardens, by West Brompton tube station.

Iris Murdoch

f8cec30

but it was love in an inferno: that terrible relentless withholding of forgiveness.

Iris Murdoch

e018b0e

If only he could be loved by somebody new.

Iris Murdoch

b9f3d6b

Bradley, I wish I'd understood that stuff you spouted about Hamlet." "Forget it. No high theory about Shakespeare is any good, not because he's so divine but because he's so human. Even great art is jumble in the end." "So the critics are just stupid?" "It needs no theory to tell us this! One should simply try to like as much as one can."

Iris Murdoch

d9c4744

It's all a dream, he thought, one goes through life in a dream, it's all too hard.

Iris Murdoch

85e72cf

All the effort which he had put into making himself seemed vanity now that there were no more purposes

Iris Murdoch

f73bedf

Sometimes he would have liked to pray, but what is prayer if there is nobody there?

Iris Murdoch

6d5fba1

But thinking about wickedness usually just comforts.

Iris Murdoch

da1dfbd

Brooding about the past is so often fantasy of how one might have won and resentment that one didn't. It is that resentment which one so often mistakes for repentance

Iris Murdoch

93683ce

But, and especially with Linda's help, he had decided that, like most other people, he was not made for reality.

Iris Murdoch

6f2422b

Our planet is a freak which we shall destroy by our own wicked senseless activities in the next century. Our history will very soon come to an end. Now that God is dead, we are at last presented with the truth, yes, the truth remains, but it is on a short lead. Anyway, we are nothing and it matters not what we do.

doomsday end-of-the-world iris-murdoch meaningless nihilism pessimistic the-green-knight

Iris Murdoch

fc6f639

I said, "Your brother is in bed with my wife." I added, "I just took them up some wine in bed."

dialogue humor iris-murdoch witty

Iris Murdoch

cd34b6b

He had lived a chaste life really. It was his accusers and not his crimes which troubled him.

Iris Murdoch

0e5eab1

Bellamy found simply a task of amazing difficulty. It was as if ordinary human life were a mobile machine full of holes, crannies, spaces, apertures, fissures, cavities, lairs, into one of which Bellamy was required to (and indeed desired to) fit himself. The machine moved slowly, resembling a train, or sometimes a merry-go-round. But as soon as Bellamy got on (or got in), the machine would soon eject him, sending him spinning back to a ..

depression despair iris-murdoch left-out place-in-the-world spectator the-green-knight work

Iris Murdoch

db42014

Kant abolished God and made man God in His stead. We are still living in the age of the Kantian man, or Kantian man-god. Kant's conclusive exposure of the so-called proofs of the existence of God, his analysis of the limitations of speculative reason, together with his eloquent portrayal of the dgnity of rational man, has had results which might possibly dismay him. How recognizable, how familiar to us, is the man so beautifully portrayed i..

Iris Murdoch

f0bf99e

She felt intense disappointment, even a kind of guilt, as if she had missed something, perhaps forever. He had been there, she could have spoken to him. Could she call out now, cry his name? It was impossible.

finality guilt iris-murdoch missed-chances missed-opportunity sad the-green-knight

Iris Murdoch

6ed5b79

You're doing your thing, why can't I do my thing? I must be me even if I suffer for it.

henry-and-cato identity iris-murdoch self self-expression suffer

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 foreboding iris-murdoch the-black-prince

Iris Murdoch

2447f1e

We are all potentially demons to each other, but some close relationships are saved from this fate.

demons iris-murdoch metaphor relationships the-sea-the-sea toxic-relationships

Iris Murdoch

2a6306c

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

iris-murdoch meta narrative narrator self-deprecating the-black-prince

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. Possib..

humor iris-murdoch marriage omission relationships the-black-prince

Iris Murdoch

69f934e

You get so worked up and flowery! You sound as if you were quoting something all the time!

flowery humor iris-murdoch quoting the-black-prince

Iris Murdoch

c4f14e4

You see, nobody cares about me except you. You don't know what that's like. You've always had people who cared. You've always had . I've never had anybody. No wonder I feel frustrated.

frustrated henry-and-cato iris-murdoch lonely unloved

Iris Murdoch

08af27f

I want you to be able to me, and as my love for you is so much of me (all of me, making me more than myself) then you must see that too.

henry-and-cato identity iris-murdoch love seen self the-beloved

Iris Murdoch

4d38cb7

I'm not interested. I never liked him. He's some sort scoundrel.

dialogue dislike humor iris-murdoch scoundrel the-black-prince

Iris Murdoch

209a32c

Nothing will bring me peace except revenge.

peace revenge the-green-knight

Iris Murdoch

a68af5b

Anywhere is dangerous if you carry danger with you.

dangerous inner-turmoil iris-murdoch the-message-to-the-planet troubled

Iris Murdoch

711df23

The trouble with people nowadays is they don't know how to do nothing.

idle inactivity iris-murdoch

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 virtues worthy

Iris Murdoch

7e2ecc0

Only stories and magic really endure.

iris-murdoch lasting magic stories the-black-prince

Iris Murdoch

25e3de8

How easily one is hurt. Or is it only I who am so stupidly vulnerable.

iris-murdoch sensitive the-green-knight vulnerable

Iris Murdoch

d7adc61

Now, when she felt so deeply connected to him, they were finally estranged.

connection estranged iris-murdoch star-crossed-lovers the-message-to-the-planet unrequited-love

Iris Murdoch

33c175b

I'm not young. I've never had any youth.

burdens iris-murdoch old-soul sad the-message-to-the-planet youth

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..

creative-process crucial-moment elusive inspiration iris-murdoch the-black-prince writer writing

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 subconscious subconscious-mind the-black-prince unknowable

Iris Murdoch

1d7c738

Only sometimes at night when I think that you live now and are somewhere, I shed tears.

crying iris-murdoch parted sad separated separation tears the-black-prince

Iris Murdoch

66bc4be

Beyond her declaration of love she could not see. But as she rehearsed the intensity of her passion she thought that he , when the time came, . The desire to, at the right time, him became, as the years moved forward toward that time, increasingly painful, like a poisoned wound that must heal itself by breaking open. She thought in anguish of the times, the recent times, when she could have told him, and had been afraid to, and had cl..

if-only iris-murdoch loss missed-chance missed-opportunity suffering the-green-knight unrequited-love unspoken

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.

description iris-murdoch light the-black-prince

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.

iris-murdoch london londoners onlookers passerby the-black-prince weirdies

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.

anxiety fear hermetic homebody homesickness iris-murdoch recluse the-black-prince 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.

description humor iris-murdoch morbid the-black-prince

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.

iris-murdoch meta plot struggling the-black-prince writer writing

Iris Murdoch