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Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch Quotes

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Famous Iris Murdoch Quotes

“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.”

UnderstandingRelationshipsLoyaltyBoundariesIris MurdochLonerThe Black PrinceDiscerningSetting Limits
Book:The Black Prince
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“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." "The sympathy needn't be vague--"And it precludes any real loyalty to anybody." "One must know the details, justice, after all--" "I detest chatter and gossip. One must hold one's tongue. Even sometimes just not think about people. Real thoughts come out of silence.”

RelationshipsBeing A Person
Book:The Black Prince
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“But now more often the old stale hopeless weariness overcame him: the black sickness which almost no one else, certainly not his nearest dearest friends, could understand at all. The idea of giving up the world, which had given him for a time so much life-energy, appeared now as a sort of fake suicide, a ghastly play-image of his death. This fatal falseness-of-heart was what perhaps Father Damien, on further acquaintance, had now seen in him.”

DeathDepressionSuicideIsolatedIris MurdochMisunderstoodThe Green KnightRecluseLack Of UnderstandingHermit
Book:The Green Knight
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