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She had always been an unashamed reader of novels.

Barbara Pym

Once outside the magic circle the writers became their lonely selves, pondering on poems, observing their fellow men ruthlessly, putting people they knew into novels; no wonder they were without friends.
BARBARA PYM

Lonely Men Self
My thoughts went round and round and it occurred to me that if I ever wrote a novel it would be of the ‘stream of consciousness’ type and deal with an hour in the life of a woman at the sink.
BARBARA PYM

Consciousness Hours Novel Occur Stream
Life is cruel and we do terrible things to each other.
BARBARA PYM

Cruel Life Terrible
The small things of life were often so much bigger than the great things . . . the trivial pleasure like cooking, one’s home, little poems especially sad ones, solitary walks, funny things seen and overheard.
BARBARA PYM

Cooking Funny Home Things
I stretched out my hand towards the little bookshelf where I kept cookery and devotional books, the most comfortable bedside reading.
BARBARA PYM

Book Hand Reading
I realised that one might love him secretly with no hope of encouragement, which can be very enjoyable for the young or inexperienced.
BARBARA PYM

Encouragement might Unrequited Love
I was so astonished that I could think of nothing to say, but wondered irrelevantly if I was to be caught with a teapot in my hand on every dramatic occasion.
BARBARA PYM

Dramatic Hands Thinking
There are some things too dreadful to be revealed, and it is even more dreadful how, in spite of our better instincts,we long to know about them.
BARBARA PYM

Instinct Long Spite
I pulled myself up and told myself to stop these ridiculous thoughts, wondering why it is that we can never stop trying to analyse the motives of people who have no personal interest in us, in the vain hope of finding that perhaps they may have just a little after all.
BARBARA PYM

May People Trying
There are various ways of mending a broken heart, but perhaps going to a learned conference is one of the more unusual.
BARBARA PYM

Broken Heart Way
I imagine the proverb about too many cooks spoiling the broth can be applied to writing as well as anything else. The poetical or literary broth is better cooked by one person.
BARBARA PYM

Cooks Imagine Writing
Of course it’s all right for librarians to smell of drink.
BARBARA PYM

Drink Librarian Smell
There are no sick people in North Oxford. They are either dead or alive. It’s sometimes difficult to tell the difference, that’s all.
BARBARA PYM

Differences Oxford People
The burden of keeping three people in toilet paper seemed to me rather a heavy one.
BARBARA PYM

Paper People Three
Perhaps I need some shattering experience to awaken and inspire me, or at least to give me some emotion to recollect in tranquility. But how to get it? Sit here and wait for it or go out and seek it? . . . I expect it will be sit and wait.
BARBARA PYM

Giving Inspire Waiting
It was odd how one found oneself making trivial conversation on important occasions. Perhaps it was because one could not say what was really in one’s mind.
BARBARA PYM

Important Mind Odd

She had always been an unashamed reader of novels.

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She had always been an unashamed reader of novels.

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