“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, book A Fairly Honourable Defeat

A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970); 2001, p. 170.

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Iris Murdoch61

British writer and philosopher 1919–1999

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Context: I stumbled across the Champs Élysées. I know it seems crazy to say, but before I actually stepped onto it (at what turned out to be the Étoile ) I had not even been aware of its existence. No, I swear it. I’d heard the words "Champs Élysées," of course, but I thought it was a park or something. I mean that’s what it sounds like, doesn’t it? All at once I found myself standing there gazing down that enchanted boulevard in the blue, blue evening. Everything seemed to fall into place. Here was all the gaiety and glory and sparkle I knew was going to be life if I could just grasp it.
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“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.”

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Iris Murdoch61

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