People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.
Iris MurdochThere is a gulf fixed between those who can sleep and those who cannot. It is one of the greatest divisions of the human race.
Iris MurdochTrains induce such terrible anxiety. They image the possibility of total and irrevocable failure. They are also dirty, rackety, packed with strangers, an object lesson in the foul contingency of life: the talkative fellow-traveller, the possibility of children.
Iris MurdochLove is the source of our greatest errors; but when it is even partially refined it is the energy and the passion of the soul in its search for Good, the force that joins us to Good and joins us to the world through Good. Its existence is the unmistakable sign that we are spiritual creatures, attracted by excellence and made for the Good. It is a reflection of the warmth and light of the sun.
Iris Murdoch