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2c4d8b5
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Her lips are slightly parted: she, whose lips are usually pressed together with the daily disapprovals of the accountants' office where she has worked continually, except for the months of illness, since she was 18, that is to say, for 16 years and some months. Her lips, when she does not speak or eat, are normally pressed together like the ruled line of a balance sheet, marked straight with her old-fashioned lipstick, a final and judjing m..
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Muriel Spark |
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d03524f
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I think she's too ignorant to be a witch.
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humour
witches
intelligence
witch
ignorance
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Muriel Spark |
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df04fd7
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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 ..
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goodness
truth
girls
teacher
safety
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Muriel Spark |
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73044a4
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Without an ever-present sense of death life is insipid.
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mortality
meaning
living
life
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Muriel Spark |
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34af458
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I'd rather deal with a rogue than a fool.
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Muriel Spark |
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be8ff73
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He turns a page of his newspaper and folds it conveniently for reading, and reads it without looking at her again, settling further into his seat with the slight sigh of one whose visitor has left and who is at last alone.
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Muriel Spark |
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b77b261
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But those of Miss Brodie's kind were great talkers and feminists and, like most feminists, talked to men as man-to-man.
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Muriel Spark |
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269caf6
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after thirty years' hostile fellowship with Collie, of course she did quite well understand that collie had a habit of skipping several stages in the logical sequence of her thoughts and would utter apparently disconnected statements, especially when confused by unfamiliar subject or the presence of a man
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Muriel Spark |
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3e82269
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You can lie awake at night and think; the quality of insomnia depends entirely on what you decide to think of. Can you decide to think? - Yes, you can.
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Muriel Spark |
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db4baff
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She did not know then that the price of allowing false opinions was the gradual loss of one's capacity for forming true ones.
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reviewing
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Muriel Spark |
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c3e47e8
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I don't know why I thought of Dottie as my friend but I did. I believe she thought the same way about me although she really didn't like me. In those days, among the people I mixed with, one had friends almost by predestination. There they were, like your winter coat and your meagre luggage. You didn't think of discarding them just because you didn't altogether like them.
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Muriel Spark |
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c16ec8c
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Her words depressed him. They were like spilt sugar; however much you swept it up some grains would keep grinding under your feet.
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sugar
conversation
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Muriel Spark |
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b60aefe
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Sandwiches,' she said, 'like diamonds, are forever.
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humor
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Muriel Spark |
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aaf45c5
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O where shall I find a virtuous woman, for her price is above rubies.
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Muriel Spark |
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20e8291
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At that time many of the men looked like Rupert Brooke, whose portrait still hung in everyone's imagination.
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Muriel Spark |
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6f6576b
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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)
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compassion
baptist
bill-scott
buttercup
buttercup-dairy
buttercup-farm-park
christian-giving
clermiston
corstorphine
leith
muriel-spark
philanthropist
philanthropy
social-history
scottish
book
christian
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Muriel Spark |
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9d051d2
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Back in 1944 when people were normal and there was a world war on,' says Paul to his son, 'it was a serious thing to be a spy.
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spy
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Muriel Spark |
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adbe9a0
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However, as soon as Mrs. Hogg stepped into her room she disappeared, she simply disappeared. She had no private life whatsoever. God knows where she went in her privacy.
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Muriel Spark |
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0232550
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Godfrey's wife Charmian sat with her eyes closed, attempting to put her thoughts into alphabetical order which Godfrey had told her was better than no order at all, since she now had grasp of neither logic nor chronology.
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old-age
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Muriel Spark |
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518d0fe
|
You do not know the madness of scholarly curiosity, Mr Webster. To be interested, and at the same time disinterested...
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humorous
humour
scholarly
scholars
scholarship
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Muriel Spark |
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f1c5882
|
Do you know, Sandy dear, all my ambitions are for you and Rose. You have got insight, perhaps not quite spiritual, but you're a deep one, and Rose has got instinct.' 'Perhaps not quite spiritual' said Sandy. 'Yes,' said Miss Brodie, 'you're right. Rose has got a future by virtue of her instinct.' ... 'I ought to know because my prime has brought me instinct and insight, both.
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instinct
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Muriel Spark |
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be54e91
|
In fact, it was the religion of Calvin of which Sandy felt deprived, or rather a specified recognition of it. She desired this birthright; something definite to reject. It pervaded the place in proportion as it was unacknowledged. In some ways the most real and rooted people whom Sandy knew were Miss Gaunt and the Kerr sisters who made no evasions about their believe that Gold had planned for practically everybody before they were born an n..
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religion
god
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Muriel Spark |
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7e7d218
|
Nothing infuriates people more than their own lack of spiritual insight.
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Muriel Spark |
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e1ca9f4
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But now they were all fifteen, there was a lot they did not tell each other.
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Muriel Spark |
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729d090
|
Culture cannot compensate for lack of hard knowledge.
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Muriel Spark |
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91a20b7
|
I'm not saying anything against the Modern side. Modern and Classical, they are equal, and each provides for a function in life. You must make your free choice. Not everyone is capable of a Classical education. You must make your choice quite freely.
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Muriel Spark |
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a10ba2f
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Being dead's a drug', he says, 'you'll get hooked on it.
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drugs
|
Muriel Spark |
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15957f7
|
The more religious people are, the more perplexing I find them.
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Muriel Spark |
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c925a75
|
'Poise is perfect balance, an equanimity of body and mind, complete composure whatever the social scene. Elegant dress, immaculate grooming, and perfect deportment all contribute to the attainment of self-confidence.' -
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elegance
equanimity
composure
deportment
poise
self-confidence
|
Muriel Spark |
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2ba2ac1
|
You girls," said Miss Brodie, "must learn to cultivate an expression of composure. It is one of the best assets of a woman, an expression of composure, come foul, come fair. Regard the Mona Lisa over yonder!"
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Muriel Spark |
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828aace
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It astonished me later to find how the readers found Warrender's war record so convincing and full when I had said so little - one real war veteran of Burma wrote to say how realistic he found it - but since then I've come to learn for myself how little one needs, in the art of writing, to convey the lot, and how a lot of words, on the other hand, can convey so little.
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Muriel Spark |
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ad8fee7
|
El cursillo aconsejaba a la mujer trabajadora que quisiera mantener la compostura repetir dos veces al dia las siguientes frases:
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Muriel Spark |
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c297a0e
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I am putting old heads on your young shoulders,' Miss Brodie had told them at the time.
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Muriel Spark |
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864af40
|
there were other people's Edinburghs quite different from hers [...]
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Muriel Spark |
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9320442
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On the first day of his holiday Laurence Manders woke to hear his grandmother's voice below. 'I'll have a large wholemeal. I've got my grandson stopping for a week, who's on the BBC. That's my daughter's boy, Lady Manders. He won't eat white bread, one of his fads.' Laurence shouted from the window, 'Grandmother, I adore white bread and I have no fads.
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Muriel Spark |
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3c42ffd
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Sandy felt warmly towards Miss Brodie at these times when she saw how she was misled in her idea of Rose. It was then that Miss Brodie looked beautiful and fragile, just as dark heavy Edinburgh itself could suddenly be changed into a floating city when the light was a special pearly white and fell upon one of the gracefully fashioned streets. In the same way Miss Brodie's masterful features became clear and sweet to Sandy when viewed in the..
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Muriel Spark |
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0706e97
|
El gigantesco murmullo organico de la multitud, en nada semejante a la voz de un ser animado, sino mas bien como una catarata o una alteracion geologica, se propagaba por los parques y el Mall. Solo los hombres de las ambulancias Saint John, firmes ante sus camiones, conservaban su identidad. Los miembros de la familia real alzaron el brazo una vez mas, hicieron un amago de marcharse, remolonearon y volvieron a saludar, desapareciendo defin..
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Muriel Spark |
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02d0ada
|
A work of art is like living people.
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Muriel Spark |
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80ac473
|
In those days, among the people I mixed with, one had friends almost by predestination. There they were, like your winter coat and your meagre luggage. You didn't think of discarding them just because you didn't altogether like them.
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|
Muriel Spark |
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843c715
|
prime.
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|
Muriel Spark |
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3bfa339
|
In this oblique way, she began to sense what went to the makings of Miss Brodie who had elected herself to grace in so particular a way and with more exotic suicidal enchantment than if she had simply taken to drink like other spinsters who couldn't stand it any more.
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Muriel Spark |
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1358442
|
you will have the benefit of my experiences in Italy.
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|
Muriel Spark |
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9cc62a9
|
After nearly collapsing under the pressures of poverty, loneliness, and an addiction to Dexedrine, Spark sought help for her drug use and began to work seriously on a first novel, The Comforters (1957), partly with the financial and emotional support of the novelist Graham Greene. Though a late fiction writer, Spark began producing novels and stories at a rapid pace. In 1961 she wrote The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, widely considered her mas..
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Muriel Spark |
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d76c8ba
|
This deadly body of mine can dance, too.
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death
|
Muriel Spark |