Quotes from Muriel Spark

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

sooner or later I do what I want to do.

It's only possible to betray where loyalty is due

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

flattening their scorn underneath the chariot wheels of her superiority.

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.

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.

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

Poise is perfect balance, an equanimity of body and mind, complete composure whatever the social scene. Elegant dress, immaculate grooming, and perfect deportment all contribute to the attainment of self-confidence.' -

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.

People who want to write books do so because they feel it to be the easiest thing they can do. They can read and write, they can afford any of the instruments of book writing such as pens, paper, computers, tape recorders, and generally by the time they have reached this decision, they have had a simple education.

Nothing infuriates people more than their own lack of spiritual insight.

I'd rather deal with a rogue than a fool.

pisseur de copie

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

Remember you must die.

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...

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.

Her words depressed him. They were like spilt sugar; however much you swept it up some grains would keep grinding under your feet.

If you don't remember Death, Death reminds you to do so. And if you can't cope with the facts the next best thing is to go away for a holiday.

Culture cannot compensate for lack of hard knowledge.

One's prime is the moment one was born for. 

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

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