Quotes by : Iris Murdoch

We are all the judges and the judged, victims of the casual malice and fantasy of others, and ready sources....

It is necessary to write, that much is clear, and to write in a way quite unlike any way which I have....

there was a feeling as if I carried a small leaden coffin in the place of my heart

Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods.

I am in favour of illusion, not alienation... Drama must create a factitious spell-binding present moment....

There is no beyond, there is only here, the infinitely small, infinitely great and utterly demanding....

Violence is born of the desire to escape oneself.

But jealousy is a dreadful thing, Jessica. It is the most natural to us of the really wicked passions....

There are mysterious agencies of the human mind which, like roving gases, travel the world, causing pain....

But very few ordeals are redemptive and I doubt if the descent into hell teaches anything new. It can....