A Quote by Iris Murdoch

Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea. — © Iris Murdoch
Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea.
I live, I live, with an absolutely continuous sense of failure. I am always defeated, always. Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea. The years pass and one has only one life. If one has a thing at all one must do it and keep on and on and on trying to do it better.
When people start writing there is this idea that you have to get everything right first time, every sentence has to be perfect, every paragraph has to be perfect, every chapter has to be perfect, but what you're doing is not any kind of public show, until you're ready for it.
When people start writing there is this idea that you have to get everything right first time, every sentence has to be perfect, every paragraph has to be perfect, every chapter has to be perfect, but what youre doing is not any kind of public show, until youre ready for it.
I believe there's a platonic ideal for every book that is written, like there's the perfect version of the book somewhere in the ether, and my job is to find what that book is through my editing.
What if there was a library which held every book? Not every book on sale, or every important book, or even every book in English, but simply every book - a key part of our planet's cultural legacy.
My ideal is a book that is perfect on every page, that gives you tremendous aesthetic joy on every page. I suppose I am trying to write such a book.
My idea of the perfect day is nothing to do and a great book on the go.
He will find one English book and one only, where, as in the "Iliad" itself, perfect plainness of speech is allied with perfect nobleness; and that book is the Bible.
Dick Gregory used every syllable, every metaphor, every joke, every march, every incarceration, every hour of his life, to embarrass this country into providing a more perfect, perfect union.
He who boasts of being perfect is perfect in folly. I never saw a perfect man. Every rose has its thorns, and every day its night. Even the sun shows spots, and the skies are darkened with clouds; and faults of some kind nestle in every bosom.
I'd read the book and liked the book, but it made me really uncomfortable trying to picture myself in this part. Here's this guy who seems to be the embodiment of every single perfect guy.
I start a book and I want to make it perfect, want it to turn every color, want it to be the world. Ten pages in, I've already blown it, limited it, made it less, marred it. That's very discouraging. I hate the book at that point. After a while I arrive at an accommodation: Well, it's not the ideal, it's not the perfect object I wanted to make, but maybe?if I go ahead and finish it anyway?I can get it right next time. Maybe I can have another chance.
I start a book and I want to make it perfect, want it to turn every color, want it to be the world. Ten pages in, I've already blown it, limited it, made it less, marred it. That's very discouraging. I hate the book at that point.
The book. The book...think about a book. What a perfect invention. The best and most important ever.
I loved the idea of a book of fairytales meant especially for peculiar children, and I love even more the idea of making that fictional book real.
Perfection is an unattainable goal. It isn't going to be perfect. Just get words down on paper, and when you stumble to what you think is the end of the book, you will have hundreds of pages of words that came out of your head. It may not be perfect, but it looks like a book.
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