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

— Muriel Spark

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

— Muriel Spark

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

— 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

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

If I had my life to live over again, I would form the habit of nightly composing myself to thoughts of death. I would practice, as it were, the remembrance of death. There is not another practice 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.

— 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

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

— Muriel Spark

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

— 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