Quotes from Iris Murdoch

Those who hope, by retiring from the world, to earn a holiday from human frailty, in themselves and others, are usually disappointed.

The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.

Anything that consoles is fake.

Every artist is an unhappy lover. And unhappy lovers want to tell their story.

All art is a struggle to be, in a particular sort of way, virtuous.

Real worship involves waiting.

Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.

confession ran in the family.

We are all prisoner, but the name of our cure is not freedom

Freedom is not choosing; that is merely the move that we make when all is already lost. Freedom is knowing and understanding and respecting things quite other than ourselves.

Jealousy comes from self-love rather than from true love.

The sending of a letter constitutes a magical grasp upon the future.

We can only learn to love by loving.