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Novel writing is a kind of private pleasure, even if nothing comes of it in worldly terms.

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

May People Trying
Novel writing is a kind of private pleasure, even if nothing comes of it in worldly terms.
BARBARA PYM

Kind Pleasure Writing
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
How absurd and delicious it is to be in love with somebody younger than yourself. Everybody should try it.
BARBARA PYM

Absurd Love Trying
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
She had always been an unashamed reader of novels.
BARBARA PYM

Always Novel Reader Unashamed
Of course it’s all right for librarians to smell of drink.
BARBARA PYM

Drink Librarian Smell
Life is cruel and we do terrible things to each other.
BARBARA PYM

Cruel Life Terrible
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
The burden of keeping three people in toilet paper seemed to me rather a heavy one.
BARBARA PYM

Paper People Three
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
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
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 PYM

Giving Good Helping Things
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
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 love Evensong. There’s something sad and essentially English about it.
BARBARA PYM

English Essential Even Love Something Song

Novel writing is a kind of private pleasure, even if nothing comes of it in worldly terms.

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Novel writing is a kind of private pleasure, even if nothing comes of it in worldly terms.

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Popular Authors

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