Novel writing is a kind of private pleasure, even if nothing comes of it in worldly terms.
BARBARA PYMDulcie always found a public library a little upsetting, for one saw so many odd people there.
More Barbara Pym Quotes
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There are various ways of mending a broken heart, but perhaps going to a learned conference is one of the more unusual.
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How absurd and delicious it is to be in love with somebody younger than yourself. Everybody should try it.
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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.
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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 -
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 -
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.
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She had always been an unashamed reader of novels.
BARBARA PYM -
The burden of keeping three people in toilet paper seemed to me rather a heavy one.
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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.
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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.
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Dulcie always found a public library a little upsetting, for one saw so many odd people there.
BARBARA PYM -
I love Evensong. There’s something sad and essentially English about it.
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I realised that one might love him secretly with no hope of encouragement, which can be very enjoyable for the young or inexperienced.
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What a good thing there is no marriage or giving in marriage in the after-life; it will certainly help to smooth things out.
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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