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Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch Quotes

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Famous Iris Murdoch Quotes

“A love without reservation ought to be a life force compelling the world into order and beauty. But that love can be so strong and yet so entirely powerless is what breaks the heart. Love did not move toward life, it moved toward death, toward the roaring sea-caves of annihilation. Or it led to the futility of a little broken bird's egg whose remains were now being washed away by water from the tap. Even so one day God might crack the universe and wash away its fruitless powerless loves with a deluge of indifferent power.”

SadHeartbreakIris MurdochUnrequited LovePowerlessFutilityThe Nice And The Good
Book:The Nice and the Good
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“There is a pointlessness of summer London more awful than anything which fogs or early afternoon twilights are able to evoke, a summer mood of yawning and glazing eyes and little nightmare-ridden sleeps in bored and desperate rooms. With this ennui, evil comes creeping through the city, the evil of indifference and sleepiness and lack of care. At such a time the long-fought temptation is wearily yielded to, and the long-dreamt-of crime is with shoulder-shrugging casualness committed at last.”

EvilSummerLondonIris MurdochEnnuiThe Nice And The Good
Book:The Nice and the Good
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“Her time consisted of seeing him, waiting, and seeing him again, of presence, absence, presence. She watched him anxiously, muting her love, instinctively afraid of making him feel trapped or guilty. She touched him very carefully with superficial lingering touches as if to extract some essence, some strong salve, to keep her through those empty absence times. The world still came to her only through him. He became aware of a wrought-up intensity of suffering which she could not forbear occasionally to let him glimpse . . . Ducane at last decided that there was only one remedy, the brutal one of a complete parting.”

SufferingRelationshipBreakupIris MurdochUnrequited LoveThe Nice And The GoodToxic Relationship
Book:The Nice and the Good
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“How can one discover what he feels?" "I thought he might perhaps behave — quite differently with you?" "No, no. We seem to know each other well but I think that's just because I parade my feelings. He's affectionate, detached, passive, absolutely passive." "He's never told you about that place?" "He's never talked about himself at all.”

SadIris MurdochPassiveElusiveDetachedAmbiguousThe Nice And The Good
Book:The Nice and the Good
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