Quotes from Barbara Pym

You must be Mrs. Cleveland's friend that's come to stay,' said a woman in a dark felt hat trimmed with a bird's body.

Yes, I suppose one feels that life is only tolerable if one takes a romantic view of it,' Leonora agreed.

A clergyman of the Church of England should be ready for every emergency, from Asperges and Incense to North End Position and Evening Communion.

this young man is quite unsuitable for Ianthe.' 'Ianthe?' he said suddenly realizing who Sophia was talking about. 'What does she want to get married for? Isn't she quite happy as she is in her charming little house?' 'No, that doesn't seem to be enough,' said Sophia. 'We've both had this picture of her which so pleasing and comfortable and all the time she's been wanting something more.

Prudence disliked being called 'Miss Bates'; if she resembled any character in fiction, it was certainly not poor silly Miss Bates.

we probably don't know many of the answers and can't argue cleverly. And yet I suppose there's room for the stupid as well,

Nessun maggior dolore, Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria.

Mrs. Wardell wagged her finger and stood up to go. 'But you're looking very nice in your blue velvet,' she said. 'I must rush off now. Old Dr. Fremantle and his wife are coming to supper. So depressing.' She sighed. 'Reminiscences of Oxford in the eighties, with a few daring little academic jokes. And poor Olive's so dreary.

Yet she felt, as we so often do with somebody we love, that any little defect could only make him more dear to her.

The window-cleaners had arrived shortly after breakfast and it was a kind of game trying to evade them. If I go down to the uttermost ends of the earth, Jane thought, seizing a flattened pillow and beating it into roundness, there they will find me.

I always feel that one ought to give men the opportunity for self-sacrifice; their natures are so much less noble than ours.

He must be about fifty-seven or fifty-eight,' said Harriet, who seemed to have been doing a little calculation. 'It will be nice to see dear Theo again.' 'On the threshold of sixty,' mused Dr. Parnell. 'That's a good age for a man to marry. He needs a woman to help him into his grave.

Her chief work in life was interfering in other people's business and imposing her strong personality upon those who were weaker than herself.

Then she fretted, ah, she fretted, But 'ere six months had gone past, She had got another poodle dog Exactly like the last.… thought Belinda frivolously, but the old song had come into her head and seemed appropriate. Some tame gazelle or some gentle dove or even a poodle dog—something to love, that was the point.

Would you like another cup, Miss Bede?' asked Miss Prior. 'I know you're one for tea, like I am.' 'Yes, please, I would,' said Belinda, feeling this to be a comfortable classification. 'I'm sure we need plenty of tea after all this excitement.' 'We certainly do,' agreed Miss Prior.

She felt a glow of warm friendliness towards her, perhaps because of her rather plain, good-humoured face, her sensible felt hat, her not particularly well-cut tweed suit and her low-heeled shoes. Nothing from the 'best houses' here—all was as it should be in a clergyman's wife.

We can only go blundering along in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call us.

What a good thing there is no marriage or giving in marriage in the after-life; it will certainly help to smooth things out.

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