Quotes from Muriel Spark

You girls, said Miss Brodie, must learn to cultivate an expression of composure. It is one of the best assets of a woman, an expression of composure, come foul, come fair. Regard the Mona Lisa over yonder!

I have long wanted to know the Greek language, and this scheme will also serve to impress your knowledge on your own minds. John Stuart Mill used to rise at dawn to learn Greek at the age of five, and what John Stuart Mill could do as an infant at dawn, I too can do on a Saturday afternoon in my prime.

But now they were all fifteen, there was a lot they did not tell each other.

O where shall I find a virtuous woman, for her price is above rubies.

There was a wonderful sunset across the distant sky, reflected in the sea, streaked with blood and puffed with avenging purple and gold as if the end of the world had come without intruding on every-day life.

Miss Brodie liked to take her leisure over the unfolding of her plans, most of her joy deriving from the preparation

Mona Lisa in her prime smiled in steady composure even though she had just come from the dentist and her lower jaw was swollen.

Being dead's a drug', he says, 'you'll get hooked on it.

You know, Sandy said, these are supposed to be the happiest days of our lives. Yes, they are always saying that, Jenny said. They say, make the most of your schooldays because you never know what lies ahead of you.

I have frequently told you, and the holidays just past have convinced me, that my prime has truly begun. 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.

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

If anyone comes along," said Miss Brodie, "in the course of the following lesson, remember that it is the hour for English grammar. Meantime I will tell you a little of my life when I was younger than I am now, though six years older than the man himself.

Never apologise, never explain.

Arrogance is incurable.

You do not know the madness of scholarly curiosity, Mr Webster. To be interested, and at the same time disinterested…

Her name and memory, after her death, flitted from mouth to mouth like swallows in summer, and in the winter they were gone.

We all appear to ourselves frustrated in our old age...because we cling to everything so much. But in reality we are still fulfilling our lives.

I am pleased that you are so fully convinced of my candour, for to know that you suspected me of a deficiency in this virtue would grieve and mortify me beyond expression. I do not derive any merit from the possession of it, for in me it is constitutional. Yet I think where it is possessed it will rarely exist alone, and where it is wanted there is reason to doubt the existence of almost every other virtue.

A work of art is like living people.

Pictures inside frames,' said Dave. 'That's really all there is to it/ said Tom...;

El cursillo aconsejaba a la mujer trabajadora que quisiera mantener la compostura repetir dos veces al día las siguientes frases: La compostura es el equilibrio perfecto, una ecuanimidad del cuerpo y la mente, una serenidad perfecta en cualquier entorno social. Vestimenta elegante, limpieza inmaculada y modales perfectos contribuyen a lograr la seguridad en una misma.

In those days, among the people I mixed with, one had friends almost by predestination. There they were, like your winter coat and your meagre luggage. You didn't think of discarding them just because you didn't altogether like them.

you will have the benefit of my experiences in Italy.

Lies are like fleas hopping from here to there, sucking the blood of the intellect.