Search quotes

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
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.	discerning iris-murdoch loner loyalty relationships setting-limits the-black-prince understanding	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.	iris-murdoch nihilism pessimism suffering the-black-prince the-human-condition the-world worldview	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.	desperate iris-murdoch loneliness rejected selfless suicidal the-black-prince unlucky	Iris Murdoch
f79e3d0	Most friendships are a sort of frozen and undeveloping semi-hostility.	friendship hostility iris-murdoch relationships resentment stagnant the-black-prince	Iris Murdoch
a8d219c	He was glad that he had expressed to her, however blunderingly, what he felt. He was glad that he had held her hand.	holding-hands iris-murdoch no-regrets the-message-to-the-planet	Iris Murdoch
9f3a0e8	The agony was of suddenly feeling herself so separate and so secret.	iris-murdoch isolated secret secretive separate the-message-to-the-planet	Iris Murdoch
d49d9d9	Tal como nos conocemos, somos objetos falsos, imposturas, ramilletes de ilusiones" "Los juicios sobre las personas no son jamas decisivos, surgen de resumenes que inmediatamente hacen pensar en la necesidad de una reconsideracion. Los arreglos humanos no son otra cosa que cabos sueltos y calculos nebulosos, independientemente de cualquier cosa que para consolarnos pueda fingir el arte"		Iris Murdoch
d22274c	He felt himself falling into a state, very common when he was younger, of being totally cut off from the society he was in.	dissociation iris-murdoch outsider social-anxiety the-message-to-the-planet	Iris Murdoch
bb2fd38	How sad for those who cannot enjoy what are after all prime pleasures of daily life, and perhaps for some the only ones, eating and drinking.	drinking eating food iris-murdoch pleasures the-sea-the-sea	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.	hopeless iris-murdoch suicidal the-black-prince unlivable unrequited-love wanting	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 soul suffering the-black-prince unending unendurable unrequited-love unspoken	Iris Murdoch
e3e2821	I contemplated her, seeing her young bland face looking at me, now removed as if behind a gauze curtain. She quietly invited me to suffer. There was a great space now, a great silent hall in which this suffering could take place. There was no urgency now, nothing to plan, nothing to achieve. What shall I do with it, I asked her, what shall I do now with my love for you which you so terribly revived by reappearing in my life? Why did you com..	love the-sea-the-sea unrequited-love	Iris Murdoch
089664c	But the spark vanished, there was no longed-for recognition, no dawning sign of recovery. The love she had learnt in tending him was an enclosed love, muted and maimed, already mourning. They would never communicate now.	iris-murdoch missed-opportunity sad star-crossed-lovers the-message-to-the-planet unrequited-love unspoken	Iris Murdoch
fb14f8a	She could not bear the tenderness which a dog would evoke, she did not want the pain of another love. She knew how very much, how desperately, she would love her dog; and dogs are vulnerable and short-lived and die.	iris-murdoch love painful pets tenderness the-message-to-the-planet	Iris Murdoch
8a2c8de	And she wondered now how she could go on existing through the successive moments of her life.	iris-murdoch life unbearable	Iris Murdoch
507f705	I can't tell you--oh I can't tell you--how awful--how sort of unlivable--everything is now--like a great black wall in front of me--Something's got to smash.	change depression henry-and-cato iris-murdoch simile unbearable unlivable	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.	deep-breathing dissociation humor iris-murdoch panic-attack the-black-prince	Iris Murdoch
2f07ad3	But I can't do anything for him and he can't do anything for me. We must wail in our own corners.	comfortless grief iris-murdoch isolated the-message-to-the-planet	Iris Murdoch
0f438df	Hasta cierto punto estoy de acuerdo contigo --dijo Rupert-- pero... --No hay "peros", querido amigo, Kant nos mostro de modo concluyente que no podemos conocer la realidad. Sin embargo, seguimos creyendo obstinadamente que si podemos. --!Kant creia que tenemos atisbos de ella! !Eso era precisamente en lo que insistia! --Kant era estupidamente cristiano. Y tambien nosotros lo somos, aunque lo neguemos. El cristianismo es una de las mas grand..	cristiano humana kant raza realidad	Iris Murdoch
620cba0	To say we were 'in love', that vague weakened phrase, cannot express it. We loved each other, we lived in each other, through each other, by each other. We were each other. Why was it such pure unadulterated pain?	iris-murdoch love the-sea-the-sea	Iris Murdoch
db16a6c	I'm not like other people, my life just doesn't work, it never has.	difference iris-murdoch lament life outsider the-black-prince unlucky	Iris Murdoch
ace7549	But I live, I , with an absolutely continuous sense of failure. I am always defeated, always.	dejected despairing failure iris-murdoch low-self-esteem the-black-prince unrelenting	Iris Murdoch
5a2b9d2	Those who occasion loss of dignity are hard to forgive.	grudge iris-murdoch loss-of-dignity the-black-prince unforgivable	Iris Murdoch
5a2b875	She was not just a wild creature, she was a wounded creature.	iris-murdoch the-message-to-the-planet wild wounded	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.	iris-murdoch love selfless the-black-prince unrequited-love unspoken	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?	desire dramatic howling iris-murdoch kiss love passionate-love soul-mates the-black-prince	Iris Murdoch
d2a31ee	You see, I'm not mad, I suffer from depression. It's not like ordinary misery. It's like dying of boredom. It's .	depression iris-murdoch madness misery the-green-knight	Iris Murdoch
c1d47c0	There were good times or goodish times, only the bad times were so--crucial.	abusive-household bad-times crucial formative-years good-times iris-murdoch the-sea-the-sea	Iris Murdoch
f0518c2	The unspoken words trembled in the air.	the-message-to-the-planet trembled unspoken	Iris Murdoch
2061f9a	He said, 'Forgive me for being a liar and a fool and an utterly worthless man.' Louise replied, 'I love you.' He took her in his arms for a moment and they held each other with closed eyes.	confession declaration-of-love dialogue embrace iris-murdoch tender the-green-knight unconditional-love	Iris Murdoch
31f0f02	He did not touch her but enjoyed the particular intimate pain of the tension between them.	intimate iris-murdoch pain tension the-message-to-the-planet	Iris Murdoch
74035e9	Sometimes one feels suddenly doomed by fate.	doomed fate foreboding iris-murdoch premonition the-black-prince	Iris Murdoch
99bb922	It was for me a moment of great peace. I did not know then that it was the last, the very last moment of peace, the end of the old innocent world, the final moment before I was plunged into the nightmare of which these ensuing pages tell the story.	foreshadowing iris-murdoch narrator nightmare peace	Iris Murdoch
1e592e9	One can be too ingenious in trying to search out the truth. Sometimes one must simply respect its veiled face. Of course this is a love story.	ambiguity iris-murdoch love-story mysterious the-sea-the-sea truth unknowable	Iris Murdoch
5d08208	Oh what an ill fate it was that has made me love that man.	iris-murdoch love misfortune the-message-to-the-planet toxic-relationships	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.	the-black-prince toxic-people toxic-relationships	Iris Murdoch
e74d8b4	Tell her I was young once and star-bright Who am now invisible . . .	henry-and-cato invisible iris-murdoch poetry young	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 horror identity iris-murdoch life self-loathing the-black-prince trapped unhappy	Iris Murdoch
9707da8	I adore your jealousy, especially when it's so misplaced. I expect Shakespeare wrote a sonnet about that.	humor iris-murdoch jealousy misplaced the-message-to-the-planet	Iris Murdoch
3d65918	I just hope -- if he does come -- it won't be some sort of horror show.	arrival foreshadowing horrifying horror horror-show iris-murdoch	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 iris-murdoch the-black-prince unheeded	Iris Murdoch
e0d7d64	He wanted to be a universal man . . . and I suppose that isn't possible now. He belongs in fifteenth-century Italy. This age doesn't suit him.	old-soul out-of-place out-of-time the-message-to-the-planet	Iris Murdoch
38b41d8	He suffers terribly all the time. He lives in fire.	endless-suffering iris-murdoch metaphor relentless suffering the-green-knight torture	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.	inferiority iris-murdoch jealous not-wanted out-of-place outsider shame the-black-prince unspoken	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.

discerning iris-murdoch loner loyalty relationships setting-limits the-black-prince understanding

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.

iris-murdoch nihilism pessimism suffering the-black-prince the-human-condition the-world worldview

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.

desperate iris-murdoch loneliness rejected selfless suicidal the-black-prince unlucky

Iris Murdoch

f79e3d0

Most friendships are a sort of frozen and undeveloping semi-hostility.

friendship hostility iris-murdoch relationships resentment stagnant the-black-prince

Iris Murdoch

a8d219c

He was glad that he had expressed to her, however blunderingly, what he felt. He was glad that he had held her hand.

holding-hands iris-murdoch no-regrets the-message-to-the-planet

Iris Murdoch

9f3a0e8

The agony was of suddenly feeling herself so separate and so secret.

iris-murdoch isolated secret secretive separate the-message-to-the-planet

Iris Murdoch

d49d9d9

Tal como nos conocemos, somos objetos falsos, imposturas, ramilletes de ilusiones" "Los juicios sobre las personas no son jamas decisivos, surgen de resumenes que inmediatamente hacen pensar en la necesidad de una reconsideracion. Los arreglos humanos no son otra cosa que cabos sueltos y calculos nebulosos, independientemente de cualquier cosa que para consolarnos pueda fingir el arte"

Iris Murdoch

d22274c

He felt himself falling into a state, very common when he was younger, of being totally cut off from the society he was in.

dissociation iris-murdoch outsider social-anxiety the-message-to-the-planet

Iris Murdoch

bb2fd38

How sad for those who cannot enjoy what are after all prime pleasures of daily life, and perhaps for some the only ones, eating and drinking.

drinking eating food iris-murdoch pleasures the-sea-the-sea

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.

hopeless iris-murdoch suicidal the-black-prince unlivable unrequited-love wanting

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 soul suffering the-black-prince unending unendurable unrequited-love unspoken

Iris Murdoch

e3e2821

I contemplated her, seeing her young bland face looking at me, now removed as if behind a gauze curtain. She quietly invited me to suffer. There was a great space now, a great silent hall in which this suffering could take place. There was no urgency now, nothing to plan, nothing to achieve. What shall I do with it, I asked her, what shall I do now with my love for you which you so terribly revived by reappearing in my life? Why did you com..

love the-sea-the-sea unrequited-love

Iris Murdoch

089664c

But the spark vanished, there was no longed-for recognition, no dawning sign of recovery. The love she had learnt in tending him was an enclosed love, muted and maimed, already mourning. They would never communicate now.

iris-murdoch missed-opportunity sad star-crossed-lovers the-message-to-the-planet unrequited-love unspoken

Iris Murdoch

fb14f8a

She could not bear the tenderness which a dog would evoke, she did not want the pain of another love. She knew how very much, how desperately, she would love her dog; and dogs are vulnerable and short-lived and die.

iris-murdoch love painful pets tenderness the-message-to-the-planet

Iris Murdoch

8a2c8de

And she wondered now how she could go on existing through the successive moments of her life.

iris-murdoch life unbearable

Iris Murdoch

507f705

I can't tell you--oh I can't tell you--how awful--how sort of unlivable--everything is now--like a great black wall in front of me--Something's got to smash.

change depression henry-and-cato iris-murdoch simile unbearable unlivable

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.

deep-breathing dissociation humor iris-murdoch panic-attack the-black-prince

Iris Murdoch

2f07ad3

But I can't do anything for him and he can't do anything for me. We must wail in our own corners.

comfortless grief iris-murdoch isolated the-message-to-the-planet

Iris Murdoch

0f438df

Hasta cierto punto estoy de acuerdo contigo --dijo Rupert-- pero... --No hay "peros", querido amigo, Kant nos mostro de modo concluyente que no podemos conocer la realidad. Sin embargo, seguimos creyendo obstinadamente que si podemos. --!Kant creia que tenemos atisbos de ella! !Eso era precisamente en lo que insistia! --Kant era estupidamente cristiano. Y tambien nosotros lo somos, aunque lo neguemos. El cristianismo es una de las mas grand..

cristiano humana kant raza realidad

Iris Murdoch

620cba0

To say we were 'in love', that vague weakened phrase, cannot express it. We loved each other, we lived in each other, through each other, by each other. We were each other. Why was it such pure unadulterated pain?

iris-murdoch love the-sea-the-sea

Iris Murdoch

db16a6c

I'm not like other people, my life just doesn't work, it never has.

difference iris-murdoch lament life outsider the-black-prince unlucky

Iris Murdoch

ace7549

But I live, I , with an absolutely continuous sense of failure. I am always defeated, always.

dejected despairing failure iris-murdoch low-self-esteem the-black-prince unrelenting

Iris Murdoch

5a2b9d2

Those who occasion loss of dignity are hard to forgive.

grudge iris-murdoch loss-of-dignity the-black-prince unforgivable

Iris Murdoch

5a2b875

She was not just a wild creature, she was a wounded creature.

iris-murdoch the-message-to-the-planet wild wounded

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.

iris-murdoch love selfless the-black-prince unrequited-love unspoken

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?

desire dramatic howling iris-murdoch kiss love passionate-love soul-mates the-black-prince

Iris Murdoch

d2a31ee

You see, I'm not mad, I suffer from depression. It's not like ordinary misery. It's like dying of boredom. It's .

depression iris-murdoch madness misery the-green-knight

Iris Murdoch

c1d47c0

There were good times or goodish times, only the bad times were so--crucial.

abusive-household bad-times crucial formative-years good-times iris-murdoch the-sea-the-sea

Iris Murdoch

f0518c2

The unspoken words trembled in the air.

the-message-to-the-planet trembled unspoken

Iris Murdoch

2061f9a

He said, 'Forgive me for being a liar and a fool and an utterly worthless man.' Louise replied, 'I love you.' He took her in his arms for a moment and they held each other with closed eyes.

confession declaration-of-love dialogue embrace iris-murdoch tender the-green-knight unconditional-love

Iris Murdoch

31f0f02

He did not touch her but enjoyed the particular intimate pain of the tension between them.

intimate iris-murdoch pain tension the-message-to-the-planet

Iris Murdoch

74035e9

Sometimes one feels suddenly doomed by fate.

doomed fate foreboding iris-murdoch premonition the-black-prince

Iris Murdoch

99bb922

It was for me a moment of great peace. I did not know then that it was the last, the very last moment of peace, the end of the old innocent world, the final moment before I was plunged into the nightmare of which these ensuing pages tell the story.

foreshadowing iris-murdoch narrator nightmare peace

Iris Murdoch

1e592e9

One can be too ingenious in trying to search out the truth. Sometimes one must simply respect its veiled face. Of course this is a love story.

ambiguity iris-murdoch love-story mysterious the-sea-the-sea truth unknowable

Iris Murdoch

5d08208

Oh what an ill fate it was that has made me love that man.

iris-murdoch love misfortune the-message-to-the-planet toxic-relationships

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.

the-black-prince toxic-people toxic-relationships

Iris Murdoch

e74d8b4

Tell her I was young once and star-bright Who am now invisible . . .

henry-and-cato invisible iris-murdoch poetry young

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 horror identity iris-murdoch life self-loathing the-black-prince trapped unhappy

Iris Murdoch

9707da8

I adore your jealousy, especially when it's so misplaced. I expect Shakespeare wrote a sonnet about that.

humor iris-murdoch jealousy misplaced the-message-to-the-planet

Iris Murdoch

3d65918

I just hope -- if he does come -- it won't be some sort of horror show.

arrival foreshadowing horrifying horror horror-show iris-murdoch

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 iris-murdoch the-black-prince unheeded

Iris Murdoch

e0d7d64

He wanted to be a universal man . . . and I suppose that isn't possible now. He belongs in fifteenth-century Italy. This age doesn't suit him.

old-soul out-of-place out-of-time the-message-to-the-planet

Iris Murdoch

38b41d8

He suffers terribly all the time. He lives in fire.

endless-suffering iris-murdoch metaphor relentless suffering the-green-knight torture

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.

inferiority iris-murdoch jealous not-wanted out-of-place outsider shame the-black-prince unspoken

Iris Murdoch