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 PYMThe 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 PYMThere 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 PYMThere are various ways of mending a broken heart, but perhaps going to a learned conference is one of the more unusual.
BARBARA PYMPerhaps 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 PYMI stretched out my hand towards the little bookshelf where I kept cookery and devotional books, the most comfortable bedside reading.
BARBARA PYMYou 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 PYMShe had always been an unashamed reader of novels.
BARBARA PYMOh, 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 PYMI 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 PYMDulcie always found a public library a little upsetting, for one saw so many odd people there.
BARBARA PYMI love Evensong. There’s something sad and essentially English about it.
BARBARA PYMI 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 PYMMy 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 PYMIt 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 PYMWhat a good thing there is no marriage or giving in marriage in the after-life; it will certainly help to smooth things out.
BARBARA PYMOf course it’s all right for librarians to smell of drink.
BARBARA PYM