Quotes

'No words can express the torment of mind that goaded White [Murphy] into this abject offensive'

‘Of such was Neary’s love for Miss Dwyer, who loved a Flight-Lieutenant Elliman, who loved a Miss Farren of Ringsakiddy, who loved a Father Fitt of Ballinclashet, who in all sincerity was bound to acknowledge a certain vocation for a Mrs West of Passage, who loved Neary’. 

“was a schizophrenic of the most amiable variety, . . . In short, a psychosis so limpid and imperturbable that Murphy felt drawn to it as Narcissus to his fountain” 

‘This phrase is chosen with care, lest the filthy censors should lack an occasion to commit their filthy synecdoche’.

All the puppets in this book whinge sooner or later, except Murphy, who is not a puppet

self-immersed indifference to the contingencies of the contingent world which he had chosen for himself as the only felicity and achieved so seldom

The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new

Somewhere a cuckoo-clock, having struck between twenty and thirty, became the echo of a street-cry, which now entering the mew gave Quid pro quo! Quid pro quo! directly!

For every symptom that is eased, another is made worse. The horse leech’s daughter is a closed system. Her quantum of wantum cannot vary.

‘conarium has shrunk to nothing’ 

But he felt his mind to be bodytight and did not understand through what channel the intercourse was effected nor how the two experiences came to overlap.

‘ubi nihil vales, ibi nihil velis’ (where you’re worth nothing you should desire nothing) (124)

ashes end up ‘freely distributed over the floor of the saloon..swept away with the sand, the beer, the butts, the glass, the matches, the spits, the vomit’ (187). 

Seven scarves held him in position. Two fastened his shins to the rockers, one his thighs to the seat, two his breast and belly to the back, one his wrists to the strut behind. Only the most local movements were possible

Celia loved Murphy, Murphy loved celia

• She sat on till it was nearly dark and all the flyers, except the child, had gone. At last he also began to wind in and Celia watched for the kites to appear…The child knelt down in the rain, dismantled them, wrapped the tails and sticks in the sails and went away, singing. As he passed the shelter Celia called good night. He did not hear her, he was singing.

• Celia sees the last glimpse of his hand clutching a spike of railing ‘the fingers loosening and tightening, higher than the dark head’

MMM: ‘Indoor bowers of bliss with patients who have ‘escaped from a colossal fiasco'

• Mr Endon - Greek word for ‘within’. - Deploys ‘rite of symmetry’ with chess pieces
• Two time-honoured devices for presenting the reclusive hero were both of them unsuitable: the soliloquy, the interior monologue. The soliloquy is an act of spurning what Murphy cares about too little to spurn. The interior monologue depends on its substance on noting just such external particulars as Murphy is withdrawing from -

• There are more than 400 sets of recurring passages; about 150 of these sets contain more than two items; in all, more than a thousand individual passages are involved in the pattern of verbal repetition 

• Each time Celia is seated near a man who is lying down; when she tries to get up, he takes hold of her wrists; then he releases her and she gets up. "Pinioned", "Made to rise"

• “You are all I have in the world,” and then qualifies her remark: “You… and possibly Murphy” (page 11). Later, when she again tells him, “You are all I have in the world,” he tartly responds, “I…and possibly Murphy” (page 18). Echoes of this conversation recur in five other passages: Celia, after leaving Mr. Kelly’s flat, says to herself: “Now I have no one … except possibly Murphy” (page 25). When Celia leaves Murphy, the narrator says: “Now she had nobody, except possibly Mr. Kelly” (page 35). 

• When Celia leaves Mr. Kelly, he says: “Now I have no one…not even Celia” (page 115) 

• “The rock got faster and faster, shorter and shorter…soon his body would be quiet. Most things under the moon got slower and slower and then stopped, a rock got faster and faster and then stopped. Soon his body would be quiet, soon he would be free” (pages 9, 252–53).

• Another device used to hint at the novel’s hidden meanings consists of different types of cross-references that call attention to reiterated passages. When the narrator borrows an aphorism from Neary (“Love requited…is a short circuit”), he reminds readers where it originated and in this way also indicates that it has been repeated (pages 5, 29). Similarly, when the narrator quotes from Murphy’s horoscope, he attributes the quotations to Suk, the swami who cast it; this occurs eight times.7 In some instances quotation marks are used to indicate that passages are being repeated
• another type of redundancy involving repeated action. It may seem pointless for the narrator to mention that a gesture of Celia’s resembles one of Neary’s (“She despatched her hands on the gesture that Neary had made such a botch of…”).9 But comments like this one call attention to a pattern of reiterated actions. 
• Some actions are repeated many times and are used in conjunction with verbal repetition. When Miss Counihan sits on the edge of Neary’s bed, the narrator includes the following cross-reference: “In a somewhat similar way Celia had sat on Mr. Kelly’s bed, and on Murphy’s…” (page 208). This comment links four episodes: one involving Neary and Miss Counihan, one involving Mr. Kelly and Celia, and two involving Murphy and Celia (pages 207–8, 24–25, 29, 39)

• Another series of recurring episodes involves Neary and his cycle of love affairs: As soon as a woman falls in love with him, he goes off in pursuit of someone else. Neary, whose name is an anagram of “yearn,” is constantly beset by desire

• “By closing time the body, mind, and soul of Murphy were freely distributed over the floor of the saloon”

• “We do not take part in Murphy’s thoughts. We see the narrator seeing them” - Robert Harrison

• Brewery road is located between Pentonville and Metropolitan Cattle Market (Between imprisonment and slaughter), his favourite lounging place on his job path lies between the Milton House and the tripe factory (sickness and disembowelment). 

• Murphy on threshold of descent, rocking chair unstable, flat condemned, Nearyan heart control failed.
• ‘moving slowly from one stool to another until he had completed the circuit of the counters, when he would start all over agin in the reverse direction’ - While Neary waits anxiously for word from Cooper, he passes his time in Mooney’s public house thus

• Murphy at the Cockpit for lunch sets his cookies out on the grass to prepare eating them: ‘They were the same always, a Ginger, an Osborne, a Digestive, a Petit Beurre and one anonymous. He always at the first-named last, because he liked it best, and the anonymous first, because he thought it very likely the least palatable. 

• Nelly the Dachshund intervenes and eats his cookies. 

• Celia tells Mr Kelly how she met Murphy: “Celia’s account, expurgated, accelerated, improved and reduced, of how she came to have to speak of Murphy, gives the following” 

• Mentions of Renaissance Painters such as Parmigianino and Bellini - Murphy is an ironic Renaissance man.

• Celia tells Mr Kelly how she met Murphy: “Celia’s account, expurgated, accelerated, improved and reduced, of how she came to have to speak of Murphy, gives the following” 
• This formula is repeated again when Neary is about to explain to Wylie the events leading up to his behaviour in the Dublin Post Office.
• (3) When Cooper tells Miss Counihan and Wylie how Neary fired him.
• But when Murphy’s turn comes, the issue is “lovingly simplified and perverted”

• At times the narrator wholeheartedly assumes the role of stage director: “Enter Cooper” 
• Positioning: “That was the right position” when Celia is next to Mr Kelly and “All four are now in position”.

• Occasionally provides detailed stage directions: When Miss Counihan comes to call on Neary, his hot water bottle bursts, “so that water is oozing towards the centre of the floor throughout the scene that follows”

• “The little scene was over, if scene it could be called