Muriel Spark citations

“She wasn't a person to whom things happen. She did all the happenings.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Allow me, in conclusion, to congratulate you warmly upon your sexual intercourse, as well as your singing.”

“For those who like that sort of thing," said Miss Brodie in her best Edinburgh voice, "That is the sort of thing they like.”

“Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.”

“it never really occurred to her that literary men, if they like women at all, do not want literary women but girls.”

“It is well, when in difficulties, to say never a word, neither black nor white. Speech is silver but silence is golden.”

“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.”

“It is difficult for people of advanced years to start remembering they must die. It is best to form the habit while young.”

“These years are still the years of my prime. It is important to recognise the years of one's prime, always remember that.”

“Never apologise, never explain.”

“It is impossible to persuade a man who does not disagree, but smiles.”

“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.”

“The one certain way for a woman to hold a man is to leave him for religion.”

“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.”

“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.”

“She writes well and concisely, and this has tended to obscure the psychological superficiality and sheer petty malice of her content.”