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Excellent Women QUOTES

Excellent Women QUOTES

1 " I stretched out my hand towards the little bookshelf where I kept cookery and devotional books, the most comfortable bedside reading. "

― Barbara Pym , Excellent Women

2 " We, my dear Mildred, are the observers of life. Let other people get married by all means, the more the merrier. . . . Let Dora marry if she likes. She hasn't your talent for observation. "

― Barbara Pym , Excellent Women

3 " You know Mildred would never do anything wrong or foolish. I reflected a little sadly that this was only too true and hoped I did not appear too much that kind of person to others. Virtue is an excellent thing and we should all strive after it, but it can sometimes be a little depressing. "

― Barbara Pym , Excellent Women

4 " 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 , Excellent Women

5 " The conversation did not go very well and I began telling him about the people with their trays in the great cafeteria and suggesting that it would have done us more good to go there to be put in mind of our own mortality. "

― Barbara Pym , Excellent Women

6 " You could consider marrying an excellent woman?' I asked in amazement. 'But they are not for marrying.'

'You're surely not suggesting that they are for the other things?' he said, smiling.

That had certainly not occurred to me and I was annoyed to find myself embarrassed.

'They are for being unmarried,' I said, 'and by that I mean a positive rather than a negative state. "

― Barbara Pym , Excellent Women

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

― Barbara Pym , Excellent Women

8 " Well, I haven't really anything to eat at home, I began, but then stopped, as I realised that a dreary revelation of the state of one's larder was hardly the way to respond to an invitation to dinner. "

― Barbara Pym , Excellent Women

9 " I sat down at the table without any very high hopes, for both Julian and Winifred, as is often the way with good, unworldly people, hardly noticed what they ate or drank, so that a meal with them was a doubtful pleasure. "

― Barbara Pym , Excellent Women

10 " The burden of keeping three people in toilet paper seemed to me rather a heavy one. "

― Barbara Pym , Excellent Women

11 " I suppose an unmarried woman just over thirty, who lives alone and has no apparent ties, must expect to find herself involved or interested in other people's business, and if she is also a clergyman's daughter then one might really say that there is no hope for her. "

― Barbara Pym , Excellent Women

12 " 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. "

― Barbara Pym , Excellent Women

13 " 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 felt resentful and bitter towards Helena and Rocky and even towards Julian, though I had to admit that nobody had compelled me to wash these dishes or to tidy this kitchen. It was the fussy spinster in me, the Martha who could not comfortably sit and make conversation when she knew that yesterday's unwashed dishes were still in the sink. "

― Barbara Pym , Excellent Women

14 " 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 , Excellent Women

15 " They've moved me to a new office and I don't like it at all. Different pigeons come to the window. "

― Barbara Pym , Excellent Women

16 " Perhaps there can be too much making of cups of tea, I thought, as I watched Miss Statham filling the heavy teapot. Did we really need a cup of tea? I even said as much to Miss Statham and she looked at me with a hurt, almost angry look, 'Do we need tea? she echoed. 'But Miss Lathbury...' She sounded puzzled and distressed and I began to realise that my question had struck at something deep and fundamental. It was the kind of question that starts a landslide in the mind. I mumbled something about making a joke and that of course one needed tea always, at every hour of the day or night. "

― Barbara Pym , Excellent Women

17 " 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 , Excellent Women

18 " 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. "

― Barbara Pym , Excellent Women

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

― Barbara Pym , Excellent Women

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

― Barbara Pym , Excellent Women