“ Your coldness has ruined my life. All right, you didn't mean it, all right I was a schoolgirl, but you could have been kinder to someone who said they loved you, you could have been gentle and gratefu… Iris Murdoch
“ I don't think I can marry, I'm not fit for it, I'm not real enough. That's the trouble. I'm a puppet that's realised what's wrong with itself and it's . I'm propped up somewhere all alone, watching th… Iris Murdoch
“ He felt himself falling into a state, very common when he was younger, of being totally cut off from the society he was in. Iris Murdoch
“ You can't magic yourself out of the situation, you've got to live it as decently and as grimly as you can. Iris Murdoch
“ But the spark vanished, there was no longed-for recognition, no dawning sign of recovery. The love she had learnt in tending him was an enclosed love, muted and maimed, already mourning. They would ne… Iris Murdoch
“ You talk of freedom — I've never had it! I've been lonely and miserable and in despair, and you want me to consent to all that all over again! Iris Murdoch
“ He wanted to be a universal man . . . and I suppose that isn't possible now. He belongs in fifteenth-century Italy. This age doesn't suit him. Iris Murdoch
“ He was glad that he had expressed to her, however blunderingly, what he felt. He was glad that he had held her hand. Iris Murdoch
“ I adore your jealousy, especially when it's so misplaced. I expect Shakespeare wrote a sonnet about that. Iris Murdoch
“ He did not touch her but enjoyed the particular intimate pain of the tension between them. Iris Murdoch
“ She could not bear the tenderness which a dog would evoke, she did not want the pain of another love. She knew how very much, how desperately, she would love her dog; and dogs are vulnerable and short… Iris Murdoch
