Quotes from P.G. Wodehouse

Gussie opened his vaudeville career

Years before, when a boy, and romantic as most boys are, his lordship had sometimes regretted that the Emsworths, though an ancient clan, did not possess a Family Curse. How little he had suspected that he was shortly to become the father of it.

There are moments in the life of every man when the impulse attacks him to sacrifice his future to the alluring gratification of the present.

She did drive me in the Park the other day. I thought it rather a hopeful

Ask the first lion cub you meet, and it will tell you that, once you've tasted blood, there is no pulling up, and it's the same with opening telegrams.

What are you giving us? Cold consomme, a cutlet, and a savoury, sir. With lemon-squash, iced. Well, I don't see how that can hurt him. Don't go getting carried away by the excitement of the thing and start bringing in coffee.

I looked round the place. The moment of parting had come. I felt sad. The whole thing reminded me of one of those melodramas where they drive chappies out of the old homestead into the snow. 'Good-bye, Jeeves,' I said. 'Good-bye, sir.' And I staggered out.

Felicia was a dutiful child, and she loved her parents. It took a bit of doing, but she did it.

Still, he could balance himself with one hand on an inverted ginger-ale bottle while revolving a barrel on the soles of his feet. There is good in all of us.

The metropolitan touch sometimes proves a trifle too exotic for the provinces.

I eluded them, therefore, with no great expenditure of physical effort, but I would be deceiving my public if I said that I was enjoying the episode. It offends one's pride when one has to leap like a lamb in Springtime at the bidding of an elderly little Gawd-help-us with whom it is impossible to reason.

the only onion in the hash.

It seems rummy that water should be so much wetter when you go into it with your clothes on than when you're just bathing, but take it from me that it is.

Planting his foot firmly on a golf-ball which the Hon. Freddie Threepwood, who had been practising putting in the corridor before retiring to bed, had left in his casual fashion just where the steps began, he took the entire staircase in one majestic, volplaning sweep. There were eleven stairs in all separating his landing from the landing below, and the only ones he hit were the third and tenth.

I paused, partly for breath, and partly because I felt I had said enough. I stood there, waiting for her reply, wishing I had a throat lozenge to suck.

But the work had told upon the Editor. Work of that sort carries its penalties with it. Success means absorption, and absorption spells softening of the brain.

Bertie,' he said, 'I want your advice.' 'Carry on.' 'At least, not your advice, because that wouldn't be much good to anybody. I mean, you're a pretty consummate old ass, aren't you? Not that I want to hurt your feelings, of course.' 'No, no, I see that.

Mr. Roddis: [Outraged at the presence of two apparent burglars (actually his in-laws) having tea in his suburban home] - And they've opened a pot of my raspberry jam. Uncle Fred: [Architect of the above missunderstanding] Ah, then you will be able to catch them red-handed. I should fetch a policman.

There was something about this girl that made the most bizarre happenings seem right and natural. Ever since he had met her his life had changed from an orderly succession of uninteresting days to a strange carnival of the unexpected, and use was accustoming him to it.

And he was, one could see, at peace with all the world. His daily round of tasks may or may not have been completed, but he was obviously off duty for the moment, and his whole attitude was that of a policeman with nothing on his mind but his helmet.

If you see a man asking for trouble, and insisting on getting it, the only thing to do is to stand by and wait till it comes to him. After that you may get a chance. But till then there's nothing to be done.

You don't think, John, that you might ultimately come to love Agnes Flack?' 'I do not.' 'Love frequently comes after marriage, I believe.' 'So does suicide.

shaven lawns, and a general atmosphere of what is known as old-world peace. Cows were

How often in this life a mere accident may shape our whole future!