Under the Net

by Iris Murdoch

‘Is he rich?’ ‘Yes, he has a car,’ said Finn. This was Finn’s criterion, and I think at that time it was mine too.

Women think that beauty lies in approximation to a harmonious norm. The only reason why they fail to make themselves indistinguishably similar is that they lack the time and the money and the technique.

I took a deep breath, however, and followed my rule of never speaking frankly to women in moments of emotion. No good ever comes of this.

What is more tormenting than a meeting after a long time, when all the words fall to the ground like dead things, and the spirit that should animate them floats disembodied in the air? We both felt its presence.

TAMARUS: But ideas are like money. There must be an accepted coin which circulates. Concepts which are used for communication are justified by success.

Why should life be made endurable? I know that nothing consoles and nothing justifies except a story - but that doesn’t stop all stories from being lies.

‘Everyone must go his own way, Jake,’ said Hugo. ‘Things don’t matter as much as you think.’

‘What more do you want?’ said Hugo. ‘God is a task. God is detail. It all lies close to your hand.’

afresh. When does one ever know a human being? Perhaps only after one has realized the impossibility of knowledge and renounced the desire for it and finally ceased to feel even the need of it. But then what one achieves is no longer knowledge, it is simply a kind of co-existence; and this too is one of the guises of love.

Events stream past us like these crowds and the face of each is seen only for a minute. What is urgent is not urgent for ever but only ephemerally. All work and all love, the search for wealth and fame, the search for truth, like itself, are made up of moments which pass and become nothing.