Iris Murdoch

"We can only learn to love by loving."

- Iris Murdoch

"We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality."

- Iris Murdoch

"The theatre is 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

"Every man needs two women: a quiet home-maker, and a thrilling nymph."

- Iris Murdoch

"Art is the final cunning of the human soul which would rather do anything than face the gods."

- Iris Murdoch

"Fishing seems to be the great occasion when all manner of contradictions reconcile themselves."

- Iris Murdoch

"People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us."

- Iris Murdoch