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Iris Murdoch Quotes

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Iris Murdoch Quotes

“Extreme continuing unhappiness often consoles itself with images of death which may in a sense be idle, but which can play a vital part in consolation and also in the continuance of illusion. If that happens I am dead, consoles, and also dulls the edge of speculation and even of conscience. It is another way of saying, to me that cannot happen.”

UnhappinessIris MurdochConsolationSuicidalEscapeFantasiesThe Last Straw
Book:The Sacred and Profane Love Machine
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“The idea of killing himself was now more real to him than it had ever been, and he understood for the first time how it is that men can prefer extinction to the continuation of agonizing mental pain. He simply must somehow stop himself from suffering in this way. A guilt about Sophie roved sharply inside him and a cinematograph in his head re-enacted and re-enacted certain scenes. He must, he thought, now somehow switch himself off or else move on into some new and even more awful mode of being.”

SufferingGuiltMental IllnessIris MurdochAnguishSuicidalMental Torment
Book:The Sacred and Profane Love Machine
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“Even as I write these words, which should be lucid and filled with glowing colour, I feel the very darkness of my own personality invading my pen. Only perhaps in the ink of this darkness can this writing properly be written? It is not really possible to write like an angel, though some of our near-gods by heaven-inspired trickery sometimes seem to do it.”

WritingDarknessPersonalityWritersCreative ProcessIris MurdochThe Black PrinceCraft
Book:The Black Prince
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