Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.
Iris MurdochWe are such inward secret creatures, that inwardness is the most amazing thing about us, even more amazing than our reason.
Iris MurdochThe theatre is certainly a place for learning about the brevity of human glory: oh all those wonderful glittering absolutely vanished pantomime! Now I shall abjure magic and become a hermit : put myself in a situation where I can honestly say that I have nothing else to do but to learn to be good.
Iris Murdoch