Quotes from P. G. Wodehouse

That is the peculiarity of London. There is a sort of cold unfriendliness about it. A city like New York makes the new arrival feel at home in half an hour; but London is a specialist in what Psmith called in his letter the Distant Stare. You have to buy London's good will.

Work, the hobby of the philosopher and the poor man's friend.

For years Belpher oysters had been the mainstay of gay supper parties at the Savoy, the Carlton and Romano's. Dukes doted on them; chorus girls wept if they were not on the bill of fare. And then, in an evil hour, somebody discovered that what made the Belpher oyster so particularly plump and succulent was the fact that it breakfasted, launched and dined almost entirely on the local sewage. There is but a thin line ever between popular homage and execration.

No sir, said Mr Molloy. I'm mighty sorry I can't meet you in any way, but the fact is I'm all fixed up in Oil. Oil's my dish. I began in Oil and I'll end up in Oil. I wouldn't be happy outside of Oil. Oh? said Mr Carmody, regarding this Human Sardine with as little open hostility as he could manage on the spur of the moment.

In a crass and materialistic world there must inevitably be a scattered few here and there in whom pumpkins touch no chord.

It's an extraordinary thing about names. You've probably noticed it yourself. You think you've got them, I mean to say, and they simply slither away. I've often wished I had a quid for every time some bird with a perfectly familiar map has come up to me and Hallo-Woostered, and had me gasping for air because I couldn't put a label to him. This always makes one feel at a loss.

I found myself wishing that Jeeves wasn't always so dashed tactful. I mean, it's all very well to remove yourself like an eel sliding into mud when the employer has a visitor, but there are moments — and it looked to me as if this was going to be one of them — when the truer tact is to stick round and stand ready to lend a hand in the free-for-all.

I'm not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy it's Shakespeare - or if not, it's some equally brainy bird - who says that it's always when a fellow is feeling particularly braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with the bit of lead piping.

She gazed at Berry with stolid affection, like a cow inspecting a turnip.

Of course' said Joe, 'I quite realize that in an institution like this, you must have discipline. Please don't think me a foolish sentimentalist. If the order has gone out that the gang is to play croquet, and Number 6408, let us say, wants to play hopscotch, naturally you have to be firm. But discipline is one thing, harshness another. There is a difference between firmness and brutality.

Oh, is that my report, father?' said Mike, with a sort of sickly interest, much as a dog about to be washed might evince in his tub.' - Mike and Psmith

I was thinking,' she said. 'About those wives of yours.' 'What about them?' 'Mrs. Llewellyn must be the fourth.' 'Fifth. You're overlooking Bernadine Friganza.' 'It seems rather a lot.' 'That's Hollywood. You sort of drift into it. There's nothing much to do after office hours, so you go out and get married.

For a year she had prayed that Geoffrey might be given back to her, and the Gods had heard her prayer. They had given her back Geoffrey, and with a careless generosity they had given her twice as much of him as she had expected.

Percy felt for his complaisant friend something of the annoyance which a householder feels for the watchdog whom he finds fraternizing with the burglar.

Such a one, in George's opinion, was this gurgling excrescence underneath the silk hat. He comprised in his single person practically all the qualities which George disliked most. He was, for a young man, extraordinarily obese. Already a second edition of his chin had been published, and the perfectly-cut morning coat which encased his upper section bulged out in an opulent semi-circle. He wore a little moustache, which to George's prejudiced eye seemed more a complaint than a moustache.

Oh, is that my report, father? said Mike, with a sort of sickly interest, much as a dog about to be washed might evince in his tub.

Sing,' said the agent. 'Stop singing,' added the agent, hastily.

Look in at the Drones and ask the first fellow you meet ''Can the fine spirit of the Woosters be crushed?'' and he will offer you attractive odds against such a contingency.

Defeat is the test of the great man. Your true general is not he who rides to triumph on the tide of an easy victory, but the one who, when crushed to earth, can bend himself to the task of planning methods of rising again.

The gift of seeing ourselves as others see us is, as the poet indicates, vouchsafed to few men.

All the way here he was talking about what he was going to do if he ever found you again. And now you tell me he did find you. What happened? Didn't he eat you?' 'No, miss.' 'Probably on a diet.

From the Hills of Fairyland soft music came. Or, if we must be exact, Maud spoke.

It serves to keep the records straight, and is a convenience to the public to whom one wants to do the square thing - affording as it does a bird's eye view of the position of affairs to those of his readers who, through no fault of their own, are not birds.

I can remember the days, said the Gin-and-Ginger-Ale, when every other girl you met stood about six feet two in her dancing-shoes, and had as many curves as a Scenic Railway.