P.G. Wodehouse Quotes

I don’t know if you have had the same experience, but the snag I always come up against when I’m telling a story is this dashed difficult problem of where to begin it.
P.G. Wodehouse
It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.
P.G. Wodehouse
The butler entered the room a solemn procession of one.
P.G. Wodehouse
Why don't you get a haircut you look like a chrysanthemum.
P.G. Wodehouse
It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.
P.G. Wodehouse
The butler entered the room a solemn procession of one.
P.G. Wodehouse
Why don't you get a haircut you look like a chrysanthemum.
P.G. Wodehouse
He looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say "when."
P.G. Wodehouse
As a rule from what I've observed the American Captain of Industry doesn't do anything out of business hours. When he has put the cat out and locked up the office for the night he just relapses into a state of coma from which he emerges only to start being a Captain of Industry again.
P.G. Wodehouse
It was a nasty look. It made me feel as if I were something the dog had brought in and intended to bury later on, when he had time.
P.G. Wodehouse
And so the merry party began. It was one of those jolly, happy, bread-crumbling parties where you cough twice before you speak, and then decide not to say it after all.
P.G. Wodehouse
It's brain," I said; "pure brain! What do you do to get like that, Jeeves? I believe you must eat a lot of fish, or something. Do you eat a lot of fish, Jeeves?""No, sir.""Oh, well, then, it's just a gift, I take it; and if you aren't born that way there's no use worrying.
P.G. Wodehouse
Come on," he said. "Bring the poker."I brought the tongs as well. I felt like it.
P.G. Wodehouse
I had one of those ideas I do sometimes get, though admittedly a chump of the premier class.
P.G. Wodehouse
Why do you want a political career? Have you ever been in the House of Commons and taken a good look at the inmates? As weird a gaggle of freaks and sub-humans as was ever collected in one spot.
P.G. Wodehouse
What George was thinking was that the late king Herod had been unjustly blamed for a policy which had been both statesmanlike and in the interests of the public. He was blaming the mawkish sentimentality of the modern legal system which ranks the evisceration and secret burial of small boys as a crime.
P.G. Wodehouse
The cells smell is a great feature of French prisons. Ours in No.44 was one of those fine broad-shouldered up and coming young smells, which stand on both feet and look the world in the eye. We became very fond and proud of it.
P.G. Wodehouse
The brains of members of the Press departments of motion-picture studios resemble soup at a cheap restaurant. It is wiser not to stir them.
P.G. Wodehouse
...there occurred to me the simple epitaph which, when I am no more, I intend to have inscribed on my tombstone. It was this:"He was a man who acted from the best motives. There is one born every minute.
P.G. Wodehouse
I'm not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy it's Shakespeare -- or, if not, it's some equally brainy lad -- who says that it's always just when a chappie is feeling particularly top-hole, and more than usually braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with a bit of lead piping.
P.G. Wodehouse
Have you ever seen a man, woman, or child who wasn’t eating an egg or just going to eat an egg or just coming away from eating an egg? I tell you, the good old egg is the foundation of daily life. Stop the first man you meet in the street and ask him which he’d sooner lose, his egg or his wife, and see what he says!
P.G. Wodehouse
It went automatically to a heavy-weight mother with beetling eyebrows who looked as if she had just come from doing a spot of knitting at the foot of the guillotine.
P.G. Wodehouse
I'm bound to say that New York's a topping place to be exiled in. Everybody was awfully good to me, and there seemed to be plenty of things going on, and I'm a wealthy bird, so everything was fine.
P.G. Wodehouse
It was my Uncle George who discovered alcohol was a food well in advance of modern medical thought.
P.G. Wodehouse
The storm is over, there is sunlight in my heart. I have a glass of wine and sit thinking of what has passed.
P.G. Wodehouse
The snag in this business of falling in love, aged relative, is that the parties of the first part so often get mixed up with the wrong parties of the second part, robbed of their cooler judgement by the party of the second part's glamour. Put it like this: the male sex is divided into rabbits and non-rabbits and the female sex into dashers and dormice, and the trouble is that the male rabbit has a way of getting attracted by the female dasher (who would be fine for the non-rabbit) and realizing too late that he ought to have been concentrating on some mild, gentle dormouse with whom he could settle down peacefully and nibble lettuce.
P.G. Wodehouse
You won't mind my calling you Comrade, will you? I've just become a socialist. It's a great scheme. You ought to be one. You work for the equal distribution of property, and start by collaring all you can and sitting on it.
P.G. Wodehouse
I have been studying the principles of socialism deeply of late, and I came to the conclusion that I must join the cause. It looked good to me. You work for the equal distribution of property and start in by swiping all you can and sitting on it. Ah, noble scheme! Me for it!
P.G. Wodehouse
Girls do go for the finely-chiselled. And apart from his looks, he's and artist, and there's something about artists that seems to act on the other sex like catnip on cats.
P.G. Wodehouse
Employers are like horses — they require management.
P.G. Wodehouse
Feminine psychology is admittedly odd, sir. The poet Pope...""Never mind about the poet Pope, Jeeves.""No, sir.""There are times when one wants to hear all about the poet Pope and times when one doesn't.""Very true, sir.
P.G. Wodehouse
Luck is a goddess not to be coerced and forcibly wooed by those who seek her favours. From such masterful spirits she turns away. But it happens sometimes that, if we put our hand in hers with the humble trust of a little child, she will have pity on us, and not fail us in our hour of need.
P.G. Wodehouse
As Shakespeare says, if you're going to do a thing you might as well pop right at it and get it over.
P.G. Wodehouse
You can't go by what a girl says, when she's giving you the devil for making a chump of yourself. It's like Shakespeare. Sounds well, but doesn't mean anything.
P.G. Wodehouse
Captain Bradbury's right eyebrow had now become so closely entangled with his left that there seemed no hope of ever extricating it without the aid of powerful machinery.
P.G. Wodehouse
The voice of a donkey braying in the neighbouring meadow seemed like the mocking laughter of demons.
P.G. Wodehouse
She laughed - a bit louder than I could have wished in my frail state of health, but then she is always a woman who tends to bring plaster falling from the ceiling when amused.
P.G. Wodehouse
NOW, touching this business of old Jeeves – my man, you know – how do we stand? Lots of people think I’m much too dependent on him. My Aunt Agatha, in fact, has even gone so far as to call him my keeper. Well, what I say is: Why not? The man’s a genius.
P.G. Wodehouse
I felt most awfully braced. I felt as if the clouds had rolled away and all was as it used to be. I felt like one of those chappies in the novels who calls off the fight with his wife in the last chapter and decides to forget and forgive. I felt I wanted to do all sorts of other things to show Jeeves that I appreciated him.
P.G. Wodehouse
Why do dachshunds wear their ears inside out?
P.G. Wodehouse
I spent the afternoon musing on Life. If you come to think of it, what a queer thing Life is! So unlike anything else, don't you know, if you see what I mean.
P.G. Wodehouse
Had his brain been constructed of silk, he would have been hard put to it to find sufficient material to make a canary a pair of cami-knickers.
P.G. Wodehouse
Has anybody ever seen a drama critic in the daytime? Of course not. They come out after dark, up to no good.
P.G. Wodehouse
[On writing Jeeves and Wooster stories]:You tell yourself that you can take Jeeves stories or leave them alone, that one more can't possibly hurt you, because you know you can pull up whenever you feel like it, but it is merely wish-full thinking. The craving has gripped you and there is no resisting it.You have passed the point of no return.
P.G. Wodehouse
...writing Jeeves stories gives me a great deal of pleasure and keeps me out of the public houses.
P.G. Wodehouse
This is the age of the specialist, and years ago Rollo had settled on his career. Even as a boy, hardly capable of connected thought, he had been convinced that his speciality, the one thing he could do really well, was to inherit money.
P.G. Wodehouse
I couldn't have made a better shot, if I had been one of those detectives who see a chap walking along the street and deduce that he is a retired manufacturer of poppet valves named Robinson with rheumatism in one arm, living at Clapham.
P.G. Wodehouse
If you don't want me to attend the patient I'll go.''But she can't see a doctor now.''Why not?''She isn't well.
P.G. Wodehouse
Excuse me, I must go and putt
P.G. Wodehouse
Morning, Bill,' said Lord Tidmouth agreeably.'Go to hell!' said Bill.'Right-ho,' said his lordship.
P.G. Wodehouse
Water!' cried Marie.'Vinegar!' recommended the bell-boy.'Eu-de-Cologne!' said Bill.'Pepper!' said Lord Tidmouth.Mary had another suggestion.'Give her air!'So had the bell-boy.'Slap her hands!'Lord Tidmouth went further.'Sit on her head!' he advised.
P.G. Wodehouse
Bicky rocked, like a jelly in a high wind.
P.G. Wodehouse
Man's inability to get out of bed in the morning is a curious thing. One may reason with oneself clearly and forcibly without the slightest effect. One knows that delay means inconvenience. Perhaps it may spoil one's whole day. And one also knows that a single resolute heave will do the trick. But logic is of no use. One simply lies there.
P.G. Wodehouse
One of the Georges," said Psmith, "I forget which, once said that a certain number of hours' sleep a day--I cannot recall for the moment how many--made a man something, which for the time being has slipped my memory. However, there you are. I've given you the main idea of the thing; and a German doctor says that early rising causes insanity.
P.G. Wodehouse
One of the Georges - I forget which - once said that a certain number of hours' sleep each night - I cannot recall at the moment how many - made a man something which for the time being has slipped my memory.
P.G. Wodehouse
If girls realized their responsibilities they would be so careful when they smiled that they would probably abandon the practice altogether. There are moments in a man's life when a girl's smile can have as important results as an explosion of dynamite.
P.G. Wodehouse
It is the bungled crime that brings remorse.
P.G. Wodehouse
[T]he success of every novel -- if it's a novel of action -- depends on the high spots. The thing to do is to say to yourself, "What are my big scenes?" and then get every drop of juice out of
P.G. Wodehouse
Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French.
P.G. Wodehouse
I am strongly of the opinion that, after the age of twenty-one, a man ought not to be out of bed and awake at four in the morning. The hour breeds thought. At twenty-one, life being all future, it may be examined with impunity. But, at thirty, having become an uncomfortable mixture of future and past, it is a thing to be looked at only when the sun is high and the world full of warmth and optimism.
P.G. Wodehouse