Allison

“The burden of keeping three people in toilet paper seemed to me rather a heavy one.”
― Barbara Pym, Excellent Women

“And Lucia said that New York’s a jail to which, once committed, the sentence is for life; but that it is such a well-furnished jail, one does not mind much.”
― Ursula Parrott, Ex-Wife

“Virtue is an excellent thing and we should all strive after it, but it can sometimes be a little depressing.”
― Barbara Pym, Excellent Women

“Sometimes I have the feeling that we're in one room with two opposite doors and each of us holds the handle of one door, one of us flicks an eyelash and the other is already behind his door, and now the first one has but to utter a word ad immediately the second one has closed his door behind him and can no longer be seen. He's sure to open the door again for it's a room which perhaps one cannot leave. If only the first one were not precisely like the second, if he were calm, if he would only pretend not to look at the other, if he slowly set the room in order as though it were a room like any other; but instead he does exactly the same as the other at his door, sometimes even both are behind the doors and the the beautiful room is empty." Franz Kafka (in a letter to Milena Jesenska)”
― Edmund White, The Beautiful Room Is Empty