We must live by the light of our own self-satisfaction, through that secret vital busy inwardness which is even more remarkable than our reason.
Iris MurdochArt is not cozy and it is not mocked. Art tells the only truth that ultimately matters. It is the light by which human things can be mended. And after art there is, let me assure you all, nothing.
Iris MurdochHappiness is a matter of one's most ordinary everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.
Iris Murdochemotions really exist at the bottom of the personality or at the top. in the middle they are acted. this is why all the world is a stage.
Iris MurdochTime can divorce us from the reality of people, it can separate us from people and turn them into ghosts. Or rather it is we who turn them into ghosts or demons. Some kinds of fruitless preoccupations with the past can create such simulacra, and they can exercise power, like those heroes at Troy fighting for a phantom Helen.
Iris Murdoch