Quotes from P.G. Wodehouse

You don't need a hat to tax a man with stealing a pig,' said the Hon. Galahad, who was well versed in the manners and rules of good society.

I want to see the manager. Is there anything I could do, sir? Archie looked at him doubtfully. Well, as a matter of fact, my dear old desk-clerk, he said, I want to kick up a fearful row, and it hardly seems fair to lug you into it. Why you, I mean to say? The blighter whose head I want on a charger is the bally manager.

Especially if the girl he had earmarked was one of these tough modern thugs, all lipstick and cool, hard, sardonic eyes, as she probably was.

He put the good old cup of tea softly on the table by my bed, and I took a refreshing sip. Just right, as usual. Not too hot, not too sweet, not to weak, not too strong, not too much milk, and not a drop spilled in the saucer. A most amazing cove, Jeeves. So dashed competent in every respect.

She fitted into my biggest arm-chair as if it had been built round her by someone who knew they were wearing arm-chairs tight about the hips that season. She had

Few things are more difficult in this world for a young man than the securing of an introduction to the right girl under just the right conditions. When he is looking his best he is presented to her in the midst of a crowd, and is swept away after a rapid hand-shake. When there is no crowd he has toothache, or the sun has just begun to make his nose peel. Thousands of young lives have been saddened in this manner.

Won't you have an egg or something? Or a sausage or something? Or something?' 'No, thank you.' She spoke as if she belonged to an anti-sausage society or a league for the suppression of eggs. .. There was another slightly frappe silence.

Too often on such occasions one feels, as I feel so strongly with regard to poor old Stilton, that the kindly thing to do would be to seize the prospective bridegroom's trousers in one's teeth and draw him back from danger, as faithful dogs do to their masters on the edge of precipices on dark nights.' 'Yes

I can't stand Paris. I hate the place. Full of people talking French

Furthermore, as is the case with so many of the younger literati, he dresses like a tramp cyclist, affecting turtleneck sweaters and grey flannel bags with a patch on the knee and conveying a sort of general suggestion of having been left out in the rain overnight in an ash can.

The ideal girl . . . would be kind. That was because she would also be extremely intelligent, and, being extremely intelligent, would have need of kindness to enable her to bear with a not very intelligent man like himself.

Ah, well,' I said resignedly, 'if that's that, that's that, what?' 'So it would appear, sir.' 'Nothing to do but keep the chin up and the upper lip as stiff as can be managed. I think I'll go to bed with an improving book. Have you read The Mystery of the Pink Crayfish by Rex West?

The water as a topic of conversation dried up.

It's one of the advantages I get from being a bachelor—and, according to my nearest and dearest, practically a half-witted bachelor at that. 'It's no good trying to get Bertie to take the slightest interest' is more or less the slogan, and I'm bound to say I'm all for it. A quiet life is what I like.

Every man is liable on occasion to behave like a sulky schoolboy

Boko looked at me, and raised his eyebrows. I looked at Boko, and raised my eyebrows. Nobby looked at us both, and raised her eyebrows. Then we looked at Stilton, and all raised our eyebrows. It was one of those big eyebrow-raising mornings.

Those who know Bertram Wooster best are aware that he is a man of sudden, strong enthusiasms and that, when in the grip of one of these, he becomes a remorseless machine—tense, absorbed, single-minded.

Watching you at work, I was reminded of the young lady of Natchez, whose clothes were all tatters and patches. In alluding to which, she would say, Well, Ah itch, and wherever ah itches, Ah scratches.

she was usually keenly susceptible to weather conditions and reveled in sunshine like a kitten.

I was as limpid as dammit.

Mr. Carlisle became brisk. Baby, he said, as Napoleon might have said to one of his Marshals when instructing him in his latest plan of campaign . . .

What would Jeeves do that for? It struck me as rummy, too.... I mean to say, it's nothing to Jeeves what sort of a face you have! No! said Cyril. He spoke a little coldly, I fancied. I don't know why. Well, I'll be popping. Toodle-oo!

There is nothing an author today has to guard himself more carefully against than the Saga Habit. The least slackening of vigilance and the thing has gripped him.

I mean, if you fool about too long at the start, trying to establish atmosphere, as they call it, and all that sort of rot, you fail to grip and the customers walk out on you.