Quotes from book
The Comforters

The Comforters

The Comforters is the first novel by Scottish author Muriel Spark. She drew on experiences as a recent convert to Catholicism and having suffered hallucinations due to using Dexedrine, an amphetamine then available over the counter for dieting. Although completed in late 1955, the book was not published until 1957. A mutual friend, novelist Alan Barnsley, had sent the proofs to Evelyn Waugh. At the time Waugh was writing The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold, which dealt with his own drug-induced hallucinations.


“Parents learn a lot from their children about coping with life.”

The Comforters (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1957) p. 133

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

The Comforters (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1957) p. 28

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