Iris Quotes

Here memory was simply a cold cloud to be shuddered at. ~ Iris Murdoch

Don't lose hope, Frank. Rainbows always stand for hope. - Iris, Rainbow Goddess ~ Rick Riordan

It was a piece of thoroughly picturesque and proper violence. I like a violent man, really, a man who's a bit of a brute in a decent straightforward way. ~ Iris Murdoch

She was a part, an evidence, of some pure uncracked unfissured confidence in the good which was never there for me again. ~ Iris Murdoch

[On writing biography:] If you wish to see a person you must not start by seeing through him. ~ Iris Origo

I don't get dressed up every day. I'm very busy. I get really annoyed when people talk about me as a 'fashionista.' I get dressed up when I have to go out. Most of the time, I'm running around in jeans. ~ Iris Apfel

As soon as any idea is a consolation the tendency to falsify it becomes strong: hence the traditional problem of preventing the idea of God from degenerating in the believer's mind. ~ Iris Murdoch

Looking back upon millennia of history, it appears clear that no race or culture has monopoly on wartime cruelty. The veneer of civilization seems to be exceedingly thin – one that can be easily stripped away, especially by the stresses of war. ~ Iris Chang

Things, things, they outlive us and go to scenes that we know nothing of. ~ Iris Murdoch

I always feel that if you're gonna be uncomfortable and unhappy in something, just because you think it's in or it's chic, I would advise you to be happy rather than well-dressed. It's better to be happy. ~ Iris Apfel

Half the world starves. What a planet. And the eating, if you're lucky enough to do any. Stuffing pieces of dead animals into a hole in your face. Then munch, munch, munch. If there's anybody watching, they must be dying of laughter. ~ Iris Murdoch

She was not just a wild creature, she was a wounded creature. ~ Iris Murdoch

The greatest compliment a writer can be given is that a story and character hold a reader spellbound. I'm caught up in the story writing and I miss a good deal of sleep thinking about it and working out the plot points. ~ Iris Johansen

Neatly at its foot, a gauze. I hear her gargling in the bathroom. My hands and feet are blue from the cold and I cannot see through the window for the frost and icicles. When Ana Iris starts ~ Junot Diaz

Suddenly I heard Virginia's voice calling to me from the sitting room window: "Hitler is making a speech." I shouted back, "I shan't come. I'm planting iris and they will be flowering long after he is dead. ~ Leonard Woolf

The chief requirement of the good life', said Michael, 'is that one should have some conception of one's capacities. One must know oneself sufficiently to know what is the next thing. One must study carefully how best to use such strength as one has ... One must perform the lower act which one can manage and sustain: not the higher act which one bungles. ~ Iris Murdoch

If something bothers me, it bothers me for a long time until I find a way to work it out. Music provided me with a means of working things out. ~ Iris Dement

We have to keep in mind that it's not just about the numbers of people who died; it's also the manner which many of these victims met their deaths. ~ Iris Chang

You have to be interested. If you're not interested, you can't be interesting. ~ Iris Apfel

But life doesn't turn out the way you expect. Ever. - Iris from What Comes After ~ Steve Watkins

How do you keep to some idealistic set of rules when your opponent has no rules? ~ Iris Johansen

I love high-end designers, but a head-to-toe designer look for me is extremely boring. I've always mixed it up. ~ Iris Apfel

One forgot, one forgot. What hold had one on the past? The present moment was a little travelling in darkness. ~ Iris Murdoch

Religion is having an intense attitude and no time off... religion is about those awful deep things. ~ Iris Murdoch

I can't tell people how to have style. No amount of money can buy you style. It's just instinctive. ~ Iris Apfel

88. Like many self-help books, The Deepest Blue is full of horrifyingly simplistic language and some admittedly good advice. Somehow the women in the book all learn to say: That's my depression talking. It's not "me." 89. As if we could scrape the color off the iris and still see. 90. ~ Maggie Nelson

I don't know what other people are like, I haven't been able to crawl inside anybody else. ~ Iris Dement

In order to build community we must clearly honor community and each other in meaningful ways and sharing our collective genius is the gold standard with this empowering program. ~ Iris K Barratt

Kell tipped his head so that his copper hair tumbled out of his eyes, revealing not only the crisp blue of the left one but the solid black of the right. A black that ran edge to edge, filling white and iris both. There was nothing human about that eye. It was pure magic. The mark of the blood magician. ~ V.E Schwab

Of course, in the United States, which at the time was a very young country, there were also class distinctions. They weren't as pronounced, but they quickly evolved as well. ~ Iris Chang

You don't want to spend your life searching for relevance," Iris said. "It will only lead to mistakes. Those mistakes will harden you and make you bitter. You'll start resenting people who have found happiness. You'll spread misery, hoping it will destroy your own, but it won't. If you have a chance to validate something within yourself, then do yourself a favor and take that chance. You don't want to live with a piece of your heart missing - it'll turn you into a monster. It's better to be the hero of your own story than to become the villain of someone else's."
"So you're saying I would find this Cornelia woman?" Bree asked.
"If it'll bring you peace, I recommend you do," Iris said. "Even if you don't get the answers you're looking for, you'll never be poisoned with regret. ~ Chris Colfer

I have seen much of human beings over a long period, and I have learnt how little good to expect from them. ~ Iris Murdoch

Girls don't want men to be quiet and gentle, I'm told. If you're not panting with impatient lust they think you're not interested. ~ Iris Murdoch

Trains induce such terrible anxiety. They image the possibility of total and irrevocable failure. They are also dirty, rackety, packed with strangers, an object lesson in the foul contingency of life: the talkative fellow-traveller, the possibility of children. ~ Iris Murdoch

I love you. I saw you that night in the garden, and I knew you were magic like in dreams. ~ Iris Murdoch

Oh my life is so awful, it's just so awful to be me, you don't know what it's like waking every morning and finding the whole horror of being yourself still there. ~ Iris Murdoch

We are going to pick up our instruments and play Mozart,"
Honoria announced. "And we are going to do it with smiles on our
faces."
"I have no idea what any of you are talking about," Daisy said.
"I will play," Sarah said, "but I make no promises about a
smile." She looked at the piano and blinked. "And I am not picking
up my instrument."
Iris actually giggled. Then her eyes lit up. "I could help you."
"Pick it up?"
Iris's grin grew positively devilish. "The window is not far ... "
"I knew I loved you," Sarah said with a wide smile. ~ Julia Quinn

When you don't dress like everyone else, you don't have to think like everyone else. ~ Iris Apfel

The human soul is not framed for continued proximity, and the result of this enforced neighbourhood is often an appalling loneliness for which the rules of the game forbid assuagement. ~ Iris Murdoch

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 Murdoch

In America, it has been proven that the bulk of spending money is in the hands of women between 60 and 80, so it's so stupid. The people who do have the time and money to shop are either retired or empty-nesters. ~ Iris Apfel

Of course men play roles, but women play roles too, blanker ones. They have, in the play of life, fewer good lines. ~ Iris Murdoch

How the hell do I know? It just hurts me to think about it ... And its not because you're a great lay. Though you are. But I've had great lays before, and I didn't get torn up. You should have known it would come down to this. Garrett ~ Iris Johansen

I don't think dressing has anything to do with numbers. I know people of 30 who act like they're 97, and I have a few old-bag friends who are very hip. ~ Iris Apfel

He suffers terribly all the time. He lives in fire. ~ Iris Murdoch

That swimming, sloping, elusive something about the dark-bluish tint of the iris which seemed still to retain the shadows it had absorbed of ancient, fabulous forests where there were more birds than tigers and more fruit than thorns, and where, in some dappled depth, man's mind had been born ... ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Every artist is an unhappy lover. ~ Iris Murdoch

It's more than the color.' He lifts my chin a little and our eyes reconnect. 'They have a dark line around the edge of the iris, a thing of natural beauty that brings your eyes to life. And they are intense; they shine like they're reflecting the light of a thousand stars, and they reflec...t me, too, and they make me want to be everything to you. And when you get angry, they dance a little, and every time it weakens my heart and makes me smile. ~ David Cristofano

And I was upset to find how really reluctant I was to leave my little flat. It was as if I was almost frightened. Spasms of prophetic homesickness pierced me as I rearranged the china and dusted it with my handkerchief, obsessive visions of burglaries and desecrations. ~ Iris Murdoch

It's much more difficult to work on a broad subject than on a specific one, because even if it's hard to find the information, if you look hard enough for something specific you will find it, and you will discover things that you wouldn't have thought of before. ~ Iris Chang

I find beauty in the continual shaping of chaos which clearly embodies the primordial power of nature's performance ~ Iris Van Herpen

She gave him a cool glance over her shoulder. "May your balls wither away and you develope an allergy to Viagra and all its counterparts."
He looked at her, stunned. And then he suddenly exploded into laughter.
"God, you're a formidable woman"
"No, I'm not. I'm soft, remember?"
She slammed the door behind her. ~ Iris Johansen

When you take something extremely broad, then it is not a work of expansion or work of compression. It's hard because you have to decide what to throw out. ~ Iris Chang

Jealousy is perhaps the most involuntary of all strong emotions. It steals consciousness, it lies deeper than thought. It is always there, like a blackness in the eye, it discolours the world. ~ Iris Murdoch

I think fashion is just part of my life and if it hadn't of been fashion then it would have been something else. ~ Iris Apfel

It's better to be happy and comfortable than well dressed. ~ Iris Apfel

For most of us, for almost all of us, truth can be attained, if at all, only in silence. It is in silence that the human spirit touches the divine. ~ Iris Murdoch

That was true, Iris would sometimes think, about marriage: it was only a boat, too. A wooden boat, difficult to build, even more difficult to maintain, whose beauty derived at least in part from its unlikelihood. Long ago the pragmatic justifications for both marriage and wooden-boat building had been lost or superseded. Why invest countless hours, years, and dollars in planing and carving, gluing and fastening, caulking and fairing, when a fiberglass boat can be had at a fraction of the cost? Why struggle to maintain love and commitment over decades when there were far easier ways to live, ones that required no effort or attention to prevent corrosion and rot? Why continue to pour your heart into these obsolete arts? Because their beauty, the way they connect you to your history and to the living world, justifies your efforts. A long marriage, like a classic wooden boat, could be a thing of grace, but only if great effort was devoted to its maintenance. At first your notions of your life with another were no more substantial than a pattern laid down in plywood. Then year by year you constructed the frame around the form, and began layering memories, griefs, and small triumphs like strips of veneer planking bent around the hull of everyday routine. You sanded down the rough edges, patched the misunderstandings, faired the petty betrayals. Sometimes you sprung a leak. You fell apart in rough weather or were smashed on devouring rocks. But then, as now, in the teeth of a storm, ~ Ayelet Waldman

You see, nobody cares about me except you. You don't know what that's like. You've always had people who cared. You've always had people. I've never had anybody. No wonder I feel frustrated. ~ Iris Murdoch

You're not pretty, and you'll never be pretty. But, it doesn't matter. You have something much better. You have style. ~ Iris Apfel

Four and I stay behind. I wait until the room is empty and the door is shut before looking at him again. He walks towards me. "Is your-" he begins. "You did that on purpose!" I shout. "Yes, I did," he says quietly. "And you should thank me for helping you." I grit my teeth. "Thank you? You almost stabbed my ear, and you spent the entire time taunting me. Why should I thank you?" "You know, I'm getting a little tired of waiting for you to catch on!" He glares at me, and even when he glares, his eyes looks thoughtful. Their shade of blue is peculiar, so dark it is almost black, with a small patch of lighter blue on the left iris, right next to the corner of his eye. ~ Veronica Roth

You don't have to look like an old fuddy-duddy, but I believe it was Chanel who said, 'Nothing makes a woman look so old as trying desperately hard to look young'. I think you can be attractive at any age. I think trying to look like a spring chicken when you're not makes you look ridiculous. ~ Iris Apfel

I've always written about things that cause me to feel something. ~ Iris Dement

My silver iris necklace, like my father said have a meaning the petals represent faith, valor and wisdom. ~ Hilary Duff

Luka had a kind smile and the most beautiful dark-brown eyes. But it was Luka's upper left Iris smudged with a small splash of blue that made our mothers think we were destined to be. Mama said God placed a piece of my eye within his so we would always know we shared one soul. ~ Tillie Cole

For most of us the space between 'dreaming on things to come' and 'it is too late, it is all over' is too tiny to enter. ~ Iris Murdoch

To find out who you are is like putting yourself on a psychiatric couch, but you have nobody to help you. Really it isn't easy. I was talking with my nephew this morning and he gave me one of the best quotes I've heard in years 'Personal style is curiosity about oneself.' ~ Iris Apfel

Fashion you can buy, but style you possess. The key to style is learning who you are, which takes years. There's no how-to road map to style. It's about self-expression and, above all, attitude. ~ Iris Apfel

His heart ached in such a familiar way, and the very familiarity of it pained him. ~ Iris Murdoch

There is a time limit to how long a spirited young person can be kept in cold storage. ~ Iris Murdoch

The world, like a great iris of an even more gigantic eye, which has also just opened and stretched out to encompass everything, stared back at him. ~ Ray Bradbury

Your love for me does not exist in the real world. Yes, it is love, I do not deny it. But not every love has a course to run, smooth or otherwise, and this love has no course at all . . . But that is remote from love and remote from ordinary life. As real people we do not exist for each other. ~ Iris Murdoch

Words are the most subtle symbols which we possess and our human fabric depends on them. ~ Iris Murdoch

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

Asked for an explanation. I've ~ Iris Johansen

For a long time I was interested in being a social worker. In a lot of ways I feel that that's all my music is, trying to help people. ~ Iris Dement

It was like hunting fish with an underwater gun, a sport which he had once been foolish enough to try. At one moment there is the fish - graceful, mysterious, desirable and free - and the next moment there is nothing but struggling and blood and confusion. ~ Iris Murdoch

Being attractive lasts longer than being pretty. ~ Iris Apfel

It's Better To Be The Hero Of Your Own Story Than To Become The Villain Of Someone Else's

- Iris ~ Chris Colfer

I'm from New York. My grandparents were settlers of Long Island City. When they came here, there was no bridge, and they had to hire a boat across the river. They had a farm, and my grandmother had to go once a week to Manhattan to buy provisions - very primitive. ~ Iris Apfel

He looked so sad. I never saw him look sad before, he was always so superior, everywhere the king. You once called him a god from elsewhere who had lost his way. ~ Iris Murdoch

Thinking about the misery of the world is a favourite contemporary occupation. and if you can't think the television set will think for you. ~ Iris Murdoch

This sort of quiet gazing, which was like a feeding of the heart ... ~ Iris Murdoch

The worst fashion faux pas is looking in the mirror and seeing somebody else. ~ Iris Apfel

I saw . . . what I've really know all along, that you are my truth. For me you are the way the truth and the life. Only here can I be totally myself. ~ Iris Murdoch

The peach gown she'd chosen was the color of the sunrise, the rippling watered silk seeming to subtly change from rose to pink to nearly orange in different lights. She'd fallen in love with it at once. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

The world is not black and white; there are lots of shades of grey. There are good things and bad things in every era, and I think it's kind of very blindfolded to say one era was wonderful, as it was wonderful, but there were a lot of bad things as well. ~ Iris Apfel

So, in a curious lurid calm which could not last and yet, it seemed, could not end, the days went by. ~ Iris Murdoch

I still have the dress I wore on the first date with my husband, which was more than 66 years ago. I still have it, and it still fits. ~ Iris Apfel

How rarely can happiness be really innocent and not triumphant, not an insult to the deprived. ~ Iris Murdoch

But…but that's tragic! To go through life without color? Unable to appreciate art, or beauty?"
He laughed. "Now, sweet-hold your brush before you paint me a martyr's halo. It's not as though I'm blind. I have a great appreciation for art, as I believe we've discussed. And as for beauty…I don't need to know whether your eyes are blue or green or lavender to know that they're uncommonly lovely."
"No one has lavender eyes."
"Don't they?" His gaze caught hers and refused to let go. Leaning forward, he continued, "Did that tutor of yours ever tell you this? That your eyes are ringed with a perfect circle a few shades darker than the rest of the…don't they call it the iris?"
Sophia nodded.
"The iris." He propped his elbow on the table and leaned forward, his gaze searching hers intently. "An apt term it is, too. There are these lighter rays that fan out from the center, like petals. And when your pupils widen-like that, right there-your eyes are like two flowers just coming into bloom. Fresh. Innocent."
She bowed her head, mixing a touch of lead white into the sea-green paint on her palette. He leaned closer still, his voice a hypnotic whisper. "But when you take delight in teasing me, looking up through those thick lashes, so saucy and self-satisfied…" She gave him a sharp look.
He snapped his fingers. "There! Just like that. Oh, sweet-then those eyes are like two opera dancers smiling from behind big, feathered fans. Coy. Beckoning."
Sophia ~ Tessa Dare

So
Walter Arensberg,
Alfred Kreymborg,
Carl Sandburg,
Louis Untermeyer,
Eunice Tietjens,
Clara Shanafelt,
James Oppenheim,
Maxwell Bodenheim,
Richard Glaenzer,
Scharmel Iris,
Conrad Aiken,
I place your names here
So that you may live
If only as names,
Sinuous, mauve-colored names,
In the Juvenalia
Of my collected editions. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

The unspoken words trembled in the air. ~ Iris Murdoch

Existentialism, in both its Continental and its Anglo-Saxon versions, is an attempt to solve the problem without really facing it: to solve it by attributing to the individual an empty, lonely freedom, a freedom, if he wishes, to 'fly in the face of the facts'. What it pictures is indeed the fearful solitude of the individual marooned upon a tiny island in the middle of a sea of scientific facts, and morality escaping from science only by a wild leap of the will. But our situation is not like this. ~ Iris Murdoch

My mother worshipped at the altar of the accessory. ~ Iris Apfel

That's the business, Iris. It's a ruth- less industry. People's love lasts but one season. ~ Eugenia Melian

Time can divorce us from the reality of people, it can separate us from people and turn them into ghosts. Or rather it is we who turn them into ghosts or demons. Some kinds of fruitless preoccupations with the past can create such simulacra, and they can exercise power, like those heroes at Troy fighting for a phantom Helen. ~ Iris Murdoch

It was her birthday. She thought, I am always unhappy on this day. ~ Iris Murdoch

To be a complete victim may be another source of power. ~ Iris Murdoch

T. S. Eliot and Jean-Paul Sartre, dissimilar enough as thinkers, both tend to undervalue prose and to deny it any imaginative function. Poetry is the creation of linguistic quasi-things; prose is for explanation and exposition, it is essentially didactic, documentary, informative. Prose is ideally transparent; it is only faute de mieux written in words. The influential modern stylist is Hemingway. It would be almost inconceivable now to write like Landor. Most modern English novels indeed are not written. One feels they could slip into some other medium without much loss. It takes a foreigner like Nabokov or an Irishman like Beckett to animate prose language into an imaginative stuff in its own right. ~ Iris Murdoch