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Life is cruel and we do terrible things to each other.

Barbara Pym

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

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

Cruel Life Terrible
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
Once outside the magic circle the writers became their lonely selves, pondering on poems, observing their fellow men ruthlessly, putting people they knew into novels; no wonder they were without friends.
BARBARA PYM

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

Absurd Love Trying
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
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
The burden of keeping three people in toilet paper seemed to me rather a heavy one.
BARBARA PYM

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

Drink Librarian Smell
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
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 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 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
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

Life is cruel and we do terrible things to each other.

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Life is cruel and we do terrible things to each other.

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