Art is a kind of artificial memory and the pain which attends all serious art is a sense of that factitiousness.
Iris MurdochWords are the most subtle symbols which we possess and our human fabric depends on them.
Iris MurdochOne should go easy on smashing other people's lies. Better to concentrate on one's own.
Iris MurdochI live, I live, with an absolutely continuous sense of failure. I am always defeated, always. Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea. The years pass and one has only one life. If one has a thing at all one must do it and keep on and on and on trying to do it better.
Iris MurdochEating reveals the characteristic grossness of the human race and also the in-built failure of its satisfactions. We arrive eager, we stuff ourselves and we go away depressed and disappointed and probably feeling a bit queasy into the bargain. It's an image of the dรฉรงu in human existence. A greedy start and a stupefied finish. Waiters, who are constantly observing this cycle, must be the most disillusioned of men.
Iris Murdoch