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| Muriel Spark, 1960 |
"...So
I passed him some very good advice, that if you want to concentrate deeply on
some problem, and especially some piece of writing or paper-work, you should
acquire a cat. Alone with a cat in the
room where you work, I explained, the cat will invariably get up on your desk
and settle placidly under the desk-lamp.
The light from a lamp, I explained, gives a cat great satisfaction. The cat will settle down and be serene, with
a serenity that passes all understanding.
And the tranquility of the cat will gradually come to affect you,
sitting there at your desk, so that all the excitable qualities that impede
your concentration compose themselves and give your mind back the self-command
it has lost. You need not watch the cat
all the time."
and...
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| Muriel Spark, shortly before her death in 2010 |
"'You
are writing a letter to a friend,' was the sort of thing I used to
say. 'And this is a dear and close
friend, real--or better--invented in your mind like a fixation. Write
privately, not publicly; without fear or timidity, right to the end of the
letter, as if it was never going to be published, so that your true friend will
read it over and over, and then want more enchanting letters from you. Now, you are not writing about the
relationship between your friend and yourself; you take that for granted. You are only confiding an experience that you
think only he would enjoy reading. What you have to say will come out more
spontaneously and honestly than if you are thinking of numerous readers.'"
