It is one of the secrets of Nature in its mood of mockery that fine weather lays heavier weight on the mind and hearts of the depressed and the inwardly tormented than does a really bad day with dark rain sniveling continuously and sympathetically from a dirty sky.
Muriel SparkThe 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 Sparkit never really occurred to her that literary men, if they like women at all, do not want literary women but girls.
Muriel SparkFinal perseverance is the doctrine that wins the eternal victory in small things as in great
Muriel SparkI never trust the airlines from those countries where the pilots believe in the afterlife. You are safer when they don't.
Muriel SparkIf 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.
Muriel SparkFrom my experience of life I believe my personal motto should be: 'Beware of any man bringing flowers.
Muriel SparkIf I had my life over again I should form the habit of nightly composing myself to thoughts of death. I would practise, as it were, the remembrance of death. There is no other 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. Without an ever-present sense of death life is insipid.
Muriel SparkIt isn't necessarily the great and famous beauty spots we fall in love with. As with people, so with places. Love is unforeseen, and we can all find ourselves affectionately attached to the minor and the less obvious.
Muriel SparkI wouldn't take the Pope too seriously. He's a Pole first, a pope second, and maybe a Christian third.
Muriel SparkOne's prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur. You must then live it to the full.
Muriel Spark