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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

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

Absurd Love Trying
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
Dulcie always found a public library a little upsetting, for one saw so many odd people there.
BARBARA PYM

Library People Upset
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 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
Life is cruel and we do terrible things to each other.
BARBARA PYM

Cruel Life Terrible
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
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
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
She had always been an unashamed reader of novels.
BARBARA PYM

Always Novel Reader Unashamed
Novel writing is a kind of private pleasure, even if nothing comes of it in worldly terms.
BARBARA PYM

Kind Pleasure Writing
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.
BARBARA PYM

Doors House People
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 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
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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