'What do women do if they don't marry,' she mused, as if she had no idea what it could be, having been married once herself and about to marry again. - Barbara Pym

'Every man should have a wife,' declared the rector firmly. 'A single clergyman is the prey of every spinster in the parish. He should marry for safety, if for no other reason.'

'I have to share a bathroom,' I had so often murmured, almost in shame, as if I personally had been found unworthy of a bathroom of my own.

Underrated: Barbara Pym, whose unpretentious, subtle, accomplished novels, especially Excellent Women and A Glass of Blessings, are for me the finest examples of high comedy to have appeared in England during the past seventy-five years.