Muriel Spark Quotes & Sayings

You look for one thing and you find another. — Muriel Spark

I often wonder if we were all characters in one of God's dreams. — Muriel Spark

Try as i do, i can't recall her surname. Indeed, her very abstractedness and insubstantial personality seemed to say 'forget me'; she seemed to live in parenthesis; ... — Muriel Spark

I am a hoarder of two things: documents and trusted friends. — Muriel Spark

It's a whydunnit in q-sharp major and it has a message: never talk to the sort of girls that you wouldn't leave lying about in your drawing-room for the servants to pick up. — Muriel Spark

[...] there were other people's Edinburghs quite different from hers [...] — Muriel Spark

Hildegard had long felt that sentimentality was a luxury she could not afford. — Muriel Spark

There was altogether too much candor in married life; it was an indelicate modern idea, and frequently led to upsets in a household, if not divorce ... — Muriel Spark

Sandwiches,' she said, 'like diamonds, are forever. — Muriel Spark

You can lie awake at night and think; the quality of insomnia depends entirely on what you decide to think of. Can you decide to think? - Yes, you can. — Muriel Spark

Beware the ire of the calm. — Muriel Spark

Let us run up debts. One is nobody without debts. — Muriel Spark

No medicine man these days can afford to be without a portable tape recorder. Without the aid of this modern device, which may be easily concealed in the undergrowth of the jungle, the old tribal authority will rapidly become undermined by the mounting influenece of modern skepticism. — Muriel Spark

Nothing can be more puritanical in application than the virtues. — Muriel Spark

The words of the double-tongued are as if they were harmless, but they reach even to the inner part of the bowels. Praise be to the Lord, who distinguishes our cause and delivers us from the unjust and deceitful man. — Muriel Spark

I used to think it a pity that her mother rather than she had not thought of birth control. — Muriel Spark

The true novelist is one who understands the work as a continuous poem, is a myth-maker, and the wonder of the art resides in the endless different ways of telling a story. — Muriel Spark

Godfrey's wife Charmian sat with her eyes closed, attempting to put her thoughts into alphabetical order which Godfrey had told her was better than no order at all, since she now had grasp of neither logic nor chronology. — Muriel Spark

It is a good thing to go to Paris for a few days if you have had a lot of trouble, and that is my advice to everyone except Parisians. — Muriel Spark

Saving and pinching to get married, you're losing the best time of your life. — Muriel Spark

We often laughed at others in our house, and I picked up the craft of being polite while people were present and laughing later if there was anything to laugh about. — Muriel Spark

4:15. Not 4 not 4:30 but 4:15. She thought to intimidate me with the use of quarter hours. — Muriel Spark

New York, home of the vivisectors of the mind, and of the mentally vivisected still to be reassembled, of those who live intact, habitually wondering about their states of sanity, and home of those whose minds have been dead, bearing the scars of resurrection. — Muriel Spark

It is one of the secrets of Nature in its mood of mockery that fine weather lays heavier weight on the mind and hearts of the depressed and the inwardly tormented than does a really bad day with dark rain sniveling continuously and sympathetically from a dirty sky. — Muriel Spark

If I had my life over again I should form the habit of nightly composing myself to thoughts of death. I would practise, as it were, the remembrance of death. There is no other practise which so intensifies life. Death, when it approaches, ought not to take one by surprise. It should be part of the full expectancy of life. Without an ever-present sense of death life is insipid. You might as well live on the whites of eggs. — Muriel Spark

Art and religion first; then philosophy; lastly science. That is the order of the great subjects of life, that's their order of importance. — Muriel Spark

I never trust the airlines from those countries where the pilots believe in the afterlife. You are safer when they don't. — Muriel Spark

Do you know, Sandy dear, all my ambitions are for you and Rose. You have got insight, perhaps not quite spiritual, but you're a deep one, and Rose has got instinct.'
'Perhaps not quite spiritual' said Sandy.
'Yes,' said Miss Brodie, 'you're right. Rose has got a future by virtue of her instinct.'
...
'I ought to know because my prime has brought me instinct and insight, both. — Muriel Spark

In fact, it was the religion of Calvin of which Sandy felt deprived, or rather a specified recognition of it. She desired this birthright; something definite to reject. It pervaded the place in proportion as it was unacknowledged. In some ways the most real and rooted people whom Sandy knew were Miss Gaunt and the Kerr sisters who made no evasions about their believe that Gold had planned for practically everybody before they were born an nasty surprise when they died. Later, when Sandy read John Calvin, she found that although popular conceptions of Calvinism were sometimes mistaken, in this particular there was no mistake, indeed it was but a mild understanding of the case, he having made it God's pleasure to implant in certain people an erroneous since of joy and salvation, so that their surprise at the end might be the nastier. — Muriel Spark

It is impossible to repent of love. The sin of love does not exist. — Muriel Spark

You don't know what it's like trying to eat enough to live on and at the same time avoid fats and carbohydrates. — Muriel Spark

Be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur. — Muriel Spark

No mind should submit their mind to another mind He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still
that's my motto. I won't be brainwashed. — Muriel Spark

Allow me, in conclusion, to congratulate you warmly upon your sexual intercourse, as well as your singing. — Muriel Spark

Flattening their scorn underneath the chariot wheels of her superiority. — Muriel Spark

Miss Brodie was easily the equal of both sisters together, she was the square on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle and they were only the squares on the other two sides. — Muriel Spark

I wouldn't take the Pope too seriously. He's a Pole first, a pope second, and maybe a Christian third. — Muriel Spark

He turns a page of his newspaper and folds it conveniently for reading, and reads it without looking at her again, settling further into his seat with the slight sigh of one whose visitor has left and who is at last alone. — Muriel Spark

When people say that nothing happens in their lives I believe them. But you must understand that everything happens to an artist; time is always redeemed, nothing is lost and wonders never cease. — Muriel Spark

The word 'education' comes from the root e from ex, out, and duco, I lead. It means a leading out. To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil's soul. To Miss Mackay it is a putting in of something that is not there, and that is not what I call education, I call it intrusion, from the Latin root prefix in meaning in and the stem trudo, I thrust. — Muriel Spark

The sacrifice of pleasures is of course itself a pleasure. — Muriel Spark

I am putting old heads on your young shoulders,' Miss Brodie had told them at the time. — Muriel Spark

Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life. — Muriel Spark

Parents learn a lot from their children about coping with life. — Muriel Spark

From my experience of life I believe my personal motto should be: 'Beware of any man bringing flowers. — Muriel Spark

It is well, when in difficulties, to say never a word, neither black nor white. Speech is silver but silence is golden. — Muriel Spark

So great was the noise during the day that I used to lie awake at night listening to silence. — Muriel Spark

I have a great desire to make people smile - not laugh. Laughter is too aggressive. People bare their teeth. — Muriel Spark

It isn't necessarily the great and famous beauty spots we fall in love with. As with people, so with places. Love is unforeseen, and we can all find ourselves affectionately attached to the minor and the less obvious. — Muriel Spark

Contradictions in human character are one of its most consistent notes ... — Muriel Spark

Never apologise, never explain. — Muriel Spark

Sooner or later I do what I want to do. — Muriel Spark

The Brodie set did not for a moment doubt that she would prevail. As soon expect Julius Caesar to apply for a job at a crank school as Miss Brodie. She would never resign. If the authorities wanted to get rid of her she would have to be assassinated. — Muriel Spark

Jealousy ... is an affliction of the spirit which, unlike some sins of the flesh, gives no one any pleasure. — Muriel Spark

We have invented sex guilt to take our minds off the real thing. — Muriel Spark

I see no reason to keep silent about my enjoyment of the sound of my own voice as I work. — Muriel Spark

I was just as anxious to prevent injustice as to cause justice. — Muriel Spark

After thirty years' hostile fellowship with Collie, of course she did quite well understand that collie had a habit of skipping several stages in the logical sequence of her thoughts and would utter apparently disconnected statements, especially when confused by unfamiliar subject or the presence of a man — Muriel Spark

It is difficult for people of advanced years to start remembering they must die. It is best to form the habit while young. — Muriel Spark

The one certain way for a woman to hold a man is to leave him for religion. — Muriel Spark

How do you know when you're in love?' she said.
'The traffic improves and the cost of living seems very low. — Muriel Spark

These things happen in threes,' said Milly in her way of uttering bits of folk-wisdom; she was spooning tea into the heated teapot. She always mixed tea with maxims. — Muriel Spark

If you're going to do a thing, you should do it thoroughly. If you're going to be a Christian, you may as well be a Catholic. — Muriel Spark

People who quoted the Scriptures in criticism of others were terrible bores and usually they misapplied the text. One could prove anything against anyone from the Bible. — Muriel Spark

Without an ever-present sense of death life is insipid. — Muriel Spark

It never really occurred to her that literary men, if they like women at all, do not want literary women but girls. — Muriel Spark

Looking forward to going home, I was necessarily looking backward. — Muriel Spark

Sex is all right" he says
"It's all right at the time, and it's all right before" says Lise, "but the problem is afterwards. That is, if you're not an animal. Most of the time, afterwards is pretty sad. — Muriel Spark

Goodness, Truth and Beauty come first — Muriel Spark

How wonderful it feels to be an artist and a woman in the twentieth century, — Muriel Spark

The sparkle and morning-freshness of the shop, and the butter-conjuring girl, formed a mind-picture which accompanied the whole of my youth.(about the Buttercup Dairy) — Muriel Spark

Her lips are slightly parted: she, whose lips are usually pressed together with the daily disapprovals of the accountants' office where she has worked continually, except for the months of illness, since she was 18, that is to say, for 16 years and some months. Her lips, when she does not speak or eat, are normally pressed together like the ruled line of a balance sheet, marked straight with her old-fashioned lipstick, a final and judjing mouth, a precision instrument. — Muriel Spark

She wasn't a person to whom things happen. She did all the happenings. — Muriel Spark

It is impossible to persuade a man who does not disagree but smiles. — Muriel Spark

If you choose the sort of life which has no conventional pattern you have to try to make an art of it, or it is a mess. — Muriel Spark

Remember you must die. — Muriel Spark

Six years previously, Miss Brodie had led her new class into the garden for a history lesson underneath the big elm. On the way through the school corridors they passed the headmistress's study. The door was wide open, the room was empty.
'Little girls,' said Miss Brodie, 'come and observe this.'
They clustered round the open door while she pointed to a large poster pinned with drawing-pins on the opposite wall within the room. It depicted a man's big face. Underneath were the words 'Safety First'.
'This is Stanley Baldwin who got in as Prime Minister and got out again ere long,' said Miss Brodie. 'Miss Mackay retains him on the wall because she believes in the slogan "Safety First". But Safety does not come first. Goodness, Truth and Beauty come first. Follow me. — Muriel Spark

To put it squarely, as I say in my memoir, the eternal triangle has come full circle. — Muriel Spark

[My novel] took up the sweetest part of my mind and the rarest part of my imagination; it was like being in love and better. All day long when I was busy [ ... ], I had my unfinished novel personified almost as a secret companion and accomplice following me like a shadow wherever I went, whatever I did. — Muriel Spark

If you want to concentrate deeply on some problem, and especially some piece of writing or paper-work, you should acquire a cat. Alone with the cat in the room where you work ... the cat will invariably get up on your desk and settle placidly under the desk lamp ... The cat will settle down and be serene, with a serenity that passes all understanding. And the tranquility of the cat will gradually come to affect you, sitting there at your desk, so that all the excitable qualities that impede your concentration compose themselves and give your mind back the self-command it has lost. You need not watch the cat all the time. Its presence alone is enough. The effect of a cat on your concentration is remarkable, very mysterious. — Muriel Spark

One should only see a psychiatrist out of boredom. — Muriel Spark

Frankness is usually a euphemism for rudeness. — Muriel Spark

It was then that Miss Brodie looked beautiful and fragile, just as dark, heavy Edinburgh itself could suddenly be changed into a floating city when the light was a special pearly white and fell upon one of the gracefully fashioned streets. In the same way Miss Brodie's masterful features became clear and sweet to Sandy when viewed in the curious light of the woman's folly, and she never felt more affection for her in her later years than when she thought upon Miss Brodie silly. — Muriel Spark

One's prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur. You must then live it to the full. — Muriel Spark

But you won't be able to pin her down on sex. Have you thought of politics? — Muriel Spark

These years are still the years of my prime. It is important to recognise the years of one's prime, always remember that. — Muriel Spark

A rebellion against a tyrant is only immoral when it hasn't got a chance. — Muriel Spark

To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil's soul. — Muriel Spark

Being in love is something like poetry. Certainly, you can analyze and expound its various senses and intentions, but there is always something left over, mysteriously hovering between music and meaning. — Muriel Spark

Interviews can be stimulating. It depends on the intelligence of the interviewer. — Muriel Spark

A work of art is like living people. — Muriel Spark

At that time many of the men looked like Rupert Brooke, whose portrait still hung in everyone's imagination. — Muriel Spark

The letters of famous people can be placed into two categories: there is the type of letter which becomes itself a valuable contribution to literature through its wit, style or wisdom; another kind is that whose main importance lies in the provision of a background to their author's life. Especially in the correspondence of great writers and poets, these two factors are very often combined ... — Muriel Spark

Neurotics are awfully quick to notice other people's mentalities ... — Muriel Spark

She did not know then that the price of allowing false opinions was the gradual loss of one's capacity for forming true ones. — Muriel Spark

It was a gusty day, and from the windows of Caroline's top-floor flat, only the sky was visible with its little hurrying clouds. It was a day when being indoors was meaningful, wasting an afternoon in superior confidences with a friend before the two-barred electric heater. — Muriel Spark

For those who like that sort of thing," said Miss Brodie in her best Edinburgh voice, "That is the sort of thing they like. — Muriel Spark

I'm old-fashioned beyond my years. — Muriel Spark

Ridicule is the only honorable weapon we have left. — Muriel Spark

You're quite wrong there, Collie. One does miss sex. The body has a life of it's own. We do miss what we haven't had, you and I. Biologically. Ask Sigmund Freud. It is revealed in dreams. The absent touch of warm limbs at night, the absent — Muriel Spark