People have obsessions and fears and passions which they don't admit to. I think every character is interesting and has extremes. It's the novelist privilege to see how odd everyone is.
Iris MurdochI hate solitude but I am afraid of intimacy. The substance of my life is a private conversation with myself and to turn it into a dialogue would be equivalent to self-destruction. The company I need is the company which a pub or a cafe will provide. I have never wanted a communion of souls.
Iris MurdochThe priesthood is a marriage. People often start by falling in love, and they go on for years without realizing that love must change into some other love which is so unlike it that it can hardly be recognized as love at all.
Iris MurdochI think philosophy is extremely good training for anyone who wants to do anything. Although that is an idea which people may speak scornfully of now, I think it does teach one to
Iris Murdoch