Iris Murdoch Quotes About Language

Quotes about: Language

• Language is a machine for making falsehoods.

  Iris Murdoch

  Inspirational, Machines, Language

  Iris Murdoch (1977). “Under the Net”, p.51, Penguin

• Yes, of course, there's something fishy about describing people's feelings. You try hard to be accurate, but as soon as you start to define such and such a feeling, language lets you down. It's really a machine for making falsehoods. When we really speak the truth, words are insufficient. Almost everything except things like "pass the gravy" is a lie of a sort. And that being the case, I shall shut up. Oh, and... pass the gravy.

  Iris Murdoch

  Lying, People, Feelings

  "Fictional character: Iris Murdoch". "Iris", www.imdb.com. 2001.

• Reading and writing and the preservation of language and its forms and the kind of eloquence and the kind of beauty which the language is capable of is terribly important to the human beings because this is connected to thought.

  Iris Murdoch

  Reading, Writing, Important

  "Fictional character: Iris Murdoch". "Iris", www.imdb.com. 2001.

• Almost any tale of our doings is comic. We are bottomlessly comic to each other. Even the most adored and beloved person is comic to his lover. The novel is a comic form. Language is a comic form, and makes jokes in its sleep. God, if He existed, would laugh at His creation. Yet it is also the case that life is horrible, without metaphysical sense, wrecked by chance, pain and the close prospect of death. Out of this is born irony, our dangerous and necessary tool.

  Iris Murdoch

  Pain, Sleep, Laughing

  Iris Murdoch (2003). “The Black Prince”, p.80, Penguin

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