Iris Murdoch, on reading and writing:

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.

Iris Murdoch, on literature:

 

The most essential and fundamental aspect of culture is the study of literature,
since this is an education in how to picture and understand human situations.
– Iris Murdoch.