Quotes from Barbara Pym

I love Evensong. There's something sad and essentially English about it.

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.

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

Those quotations were really quite obscure. Anyone can see that he is a very well read man.

Of course it's alright for librarians to smell of drink.

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.

I realised that one might love him secretly with no hope of encouragement, which can be very enjoyable for the young or inexperienced.

She had always been an unashamed reader of novels.

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.

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.

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

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

Virtue is an excellent thing and we should all strive after it, but it can sometimes be a little depressing.

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.

Let me hasten to add that I am not at all like Jane Eyre, who must have given hope to so many plain women who tell their stories in the first person, nor have I ever thought of myself as being like her.

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.

But surely liking the same things for dinner is one of the deepest and most lasting things you could possibly have in common with anyone,' argued Dr. Parnell. 'After all, the emotions of the heart are very transitory, or so I believe; I should think it makes one much happier to be well-fed than well-loved.

I hope you don't mind tea in mugs,' she said, coming in with a tray. 'I told you I was a slut.

Perhaps long spaghetti is the kind of thing that ought to be eaten quite alone with nobody to watch one's struggles.

I love Evensong. There's something sad and essentially English about it.

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.

Inanimate objects were often so much nicer than people.

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.

Perhaps all love had something of the ridiculous in it.