Steve Truslove

“He had sometimes attempted to keep a diary himself, the kind of record of his daily life that could rival famous clerical diarists of the past, a nineteen-seventies Woodforde or Kilvert. What was he to write about the events of this morning? ‘My sister Daphne made a gooseberry tart and told me that she was going to live on the outskirts of Birmingham’? Could that possibly be of interest to readers of the next century?”
― Barbara Pym, A Few Green Leaves

“Actually he is a friend of Piers’s,’ I said. ‘Ah’ said Sybil, in a meaningful tone. I changed the subject, but when we were having dinner she brought it up again. ‘Wilmet has been entertaining a friend of Piers’s to tea,’ she said. ‘Really?’ said Rodney, in a not very interested tone. ‘Yes. I see now the clue to Piers’s lack of success in this world. I believe that he has loved not wisely but too well.’ ‘Mother, that’s such a hackneyed quotation, and it really tells one nothing. I suppose we’ve all of us done that in our time, if you come to think of it.’ I looked at Rodney in surprise. He so seldom indulged in these generalizations about love. I saw that he had gone a little pink. ‘Noddy, I think you misunderstand me,’ said Sybil.”
― Barbara Pym, The Barbara Pym Collection Volume One: A Glass of Blessings / Some Tame Gazelle / and Jane and Prudence

“If only one could clear out one's mind and heart as ruthlessly as one did one's wardrobe.”
― Barbara Pym, Some Tame Gazelle