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She had always been an unashamed reader of novels.

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

Consciousness Hours Novel Occur Stream
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

Important Mind Odd
The burden of keeping three people in toilet paper seemed to me rather a heavy one.
BARBARA PYM

Paper People Three
There are various ways of mending a broken heart, but perhaps going to a learned conference is one of the more unusual.
BARBARA PYM

Broken Heart Way
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

Giving Inspire Waiting
How absurd and delicious it is to be in love with somebody younger than yourself. Everybody should try it.
BARBARA PYM

Absurd Love Trying
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

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

Kind Pleasure Writing
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
Dulcie always found a public library a little upsetting, for one saw so many odd people there.
BARBARA PYM

Library People Upset
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
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
Of course it’s all right for librarians to smell of drink.
BARBARA PYM

Drink Librarian Smell
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
I love Evensong. There’s something sad and essentially English about it.
BARBARA PYM

English Essential Even Love Something Song

She had always been an unashamed reader of novels.

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She had always been an unashamed reader of novels.

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