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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.

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.

Approximate author period: c. 1959 AD · modern

Meaning not yet available

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Iris Murdoch
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1959 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1919 to 1999; Wikidata Q217495, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q217495 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 205469; supplied attribution, independently unverified

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.