Of course it’s all right for librarians to smell of drink.
BARBARA PYM
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.
More Barbara Pym Quotes
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Of course it’s all right for librarians to smell of drink.
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 -
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 -
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 -
I stretched out my hand towards the little bookshelf where I kept cookery and devotional books, the most comfortable bedside reading.
BARBARA PYM -
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 -
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 -
How absurd and delicious it is to be in love with somebody younger than yourself. Everybody should try it.
BARBARA PYM -
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 -
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 -
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 -
Life is cruel and we do terrible things to each other.
BARBARA PYM -
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Novel writing is a kind of private pleasure, even if nothing comes of it in worldly terms.
BARBARA PYM -
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 -
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