Sandwiches,' she said, 'like diamonds, are forever.

— Muriel Spark

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

— 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

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

The word "education" comes from the root e from ex, out, and duo, 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

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

— 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

When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not declined that it reveals, but the first days of immortality.

— Muriel Spark

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

— Muriel Spark

You're quite wrong there, Collie. One does miss sex. The body has a life of its 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