What a good thing there is no marriage or giving in marriage in the after-life; it will certainly help to smooth things out.
BARBARA PYMHow absurd and delicious it is to be in love with somebody younger than yourself. Everybody should try it.
More Barbara Pym Quotes
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You know Mildred would never do anything wrong or foolish. I reflected a little sadly that this was only too true and hoped I did not appear too much that kind of person to others. Virtue is an excellent thing and we should all strive after it, but it can sometimes be a little depressing.
BARBARA PYM -
Dulcie always found a public library a little upsetting, for one saw so many odd people there.
BARBARA PYM -
Of course it’s all right for librarians to smell of drink.
BARBARA PYM -
Oh, this coming back to an empty house,’ Rupert thought, when he had seen her safely up to her door. People – though perhaps it was only women – seemed to make so much of it. As if life itself were not as empty as the house one was coming back to.
BARBARA PYM -
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 -
Novel writing is a kind of private pleasure, even if nothing comes of it in worldly terms.
BARBARA PYM -
I stretched out my hand towards the little bookshelf where I kept cookery and devotional books, the most comfortable bedside reading.
BARBARA PYM -
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 -
Life is cruel and we do terrible things to each other.
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 -
There are various ways of mending a broken heart, but perhaps going to a learned conference is one of the more unusual.
BARBARA PYM -
I love Evensong. There’s something sad and essentially English about it.
BARBARA PYM -
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 -
How absurd and delicious it is to be in love with somebody younger than yourself. Everybody should try it.
BARBARA PYM -
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