Quotes by Iris Murdoch

“We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.”

“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.”

“Every man needs two women, a quiet home-maker, and a thrilling nymph.”

“There is no substitute for the comfort supplied by the utterly taken-for-granted relationship.”

“Falling out of love is very enlightening. For a short while you see the world with new eyes.”

“We can only learn to love by loving.”

“The absolute yearning of one human body for another particular body and its indifference to substitutes is one of lifes major mysteries.”

“Happiness is a matter of ones most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.”

“Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at ones luck.”

“Mans creative struggle, his search for wisdom and truth, is a love story”

“No love is entirely without worth, even when the frivolous calls to the frivolous and the base to the base.”

“Falling out of love is chiefly a matter of forgetting how charming someone is.”

“Jealousy is the most dreadfully involuntary of all sins”

“We defend ourself with descriptions and tame the world by generalizing”

“Between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out.”

“In almost every marriage there is a selfish and an unselfish partner. A pattern is set up and soon becomes inflexible, of one person always making the demands and one person always giving way.”

“Only lies and evil come from letting people off.”

“Perhaps misguided moral passion is better than confused indifference.”

“Literature could be said to be a sort of disciplined technique for arousing certain emotions.”

“Philosophy! Empty thinking by ignorant conceited men who think they can digest without eating!”