Muriel Spark

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

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

“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 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)”

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

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

“I wouldn't take the Pope too seriously. He's a Pole first, a pope second, and maybe a Christian third.”

“Art and religion first; then philosophy; lastly science. That is the order of the great subjects of life, that's their order of importance.”

“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.”