Muriel Spark quotes

It is impossible to persuade a man who does not disagree, but smiles. (Muriel Spark)
Parents learn a lot from their children about coping with life.
Muriel Spark
One's prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognise your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur. You must then live it to the full.
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
It is impossible to repent of love. The sin of love does not exist.
Muriel Spark
Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.
Muriel Spark
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.
Muriel Spark
She wasn't a person to whom things happen. She did all the happenings.
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
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
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)
The one certain way for a woman to hold a man is to leave him for religion.
Muriel Spark
I see no reason to keep silent about my enjoyment of the sound of my own voice as I work.
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
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
Be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur.
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.
Muriel Spark
Allow me, in conclusion, to congratulate you warmly upon your sexual intercourse, as well as your singing.
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
It is well, when in difficulties, to say never a word, neither black nor white. Speech is silver but silence is golden.
Muriel Spark
Never apologise, never explain. (Muriel Spark)
I am putting old heads on your young shoulders," Miss Brodie had told them at that time, "and all my pupils are the crème de la crème.
Muriel Spark
She writes well and concisely, and this has tended to obscure the psychological superficiality and sheer petty malice of her content.
Muriel Spark
I have a great desire to make people smile - not laugh. Laughter is too aggressive. People bare their teeth.
Muriel Spark
Final perseverance is the doctrine that wins the eternal victory in small things as in great.
Muriel Spark