P.G. Wodehouse > Quotes

“Some time ago," he said, "--how long it seems! -- I remember saying to a young friend of mine of the name of Spiller, 'Comrade Spiller, never confuse the unusual with the impossible.' It is my guiding rule in life.”
― P.G. Wodehouse

“Bertie, do you read Tennyson?"

"Not if I can help.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves

“Half a league
Half a league
Half a league onward
With a hey-nonny-nonny
And a hot cha-cha.”
― P.G. Wodehouse

“We must always remember, however,' said Psmith gravely, 'that poets are also God's creatures.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Leave It to Psmith

“It has never been hard to tell the difference between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.”
― P.G. Wodehouse

“Golf, like measles, should be caught young.”
― Wodehouse

“No novelists any good except me. Sovietski -- yah! Nastikoff -- bah! I spit me of zem all. No novelists anywhere any good except me. P. G. Wodehouse and Tolstoi not bad. Not good, but not bad. No novelists any good except me.”
― P.G. Wodehouse

“Do you ever get moods when life seems absolutely meaningless? It's like a badly-constructed story, with all sorts of characters moving in and out who have nothing to do with the plot. And when somebody comes along that you think really has something to do with the plot, he suddenly drops out. After a while you begin to wonder what the story is about, and you feel that it's about nothing—just a jumble.”
― P.G. Wodehouse

“There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves!

“On the occasions when Aunt is calling Aunt like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps...”
― P.G. Wodehouse

“When Cynthia smiles," said young Bingo, "the skies are blue; the world takes on a roseate hue; birds in the garden trill and sing, and Joy is king of everything, when Cynthia smiles." He coughed, changing gears. "When Cynthia frowns - "
"What the devil are you talking about?"
"I'm reading you my poem. The one I wrote to Cynthia last night. I'll go on, shall I?"
"No!"
"No?"
"No. I haven't had my tea.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Inimitable Jeeves

“I've found, as a general rule of life, that the things you think are going to be the scaliest nearly always turn out not so bad after all.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Inimitable Jeeves

“She came leaping towards me, like Lady Macbeth coming to get first-hand news from the guest-room.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Joy in the Morning

“The funny thing was that he wasn't altogether a fool in other ways. Deep down in him there was a kind of stratum of sense. I had known him, once or twice, show an almost human intelligence. But to reach that stratum, mind you, you needed dynamite.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, My Man Jeeves

“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 [prat], aren't you? Not that I want to hurt your feelings, of course."

"No, no, I see that."

"What I wish you to do is put the whole thing to that fellow Jeeves of yours, and see what he suggests.”
― Wodehouse

“The exquisite code of politeness of the Woosters prevented me clipping her one on the ear-hole, but I would have given a shilling to be able to do it. There seemed to me something deliberately fat-headed in the way she persisted in missing the gist.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves

“The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you're someone. You hear them shouting "Heil, Spode!" and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: "Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters

“as if Nature had intended to make a gorilla, and had changed its mind at the last moment”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters

“A roll and butter and a small coffee seemed the only things on the list that hadn't been specially prepared by the nastier-minded members of the Borgia family for people they had a particular grudge against, so I chose them.”
― Wodehouse

“I read the paragraph again. A peculiar feeling it gave me. I don't know if you have ever experienced the sensation of seeing the announcement of the engagement of a pal of yours to a girl whom you were only saved from marrying yourself by the skin of your teeth. It induces a sort of -- well, it's difficult to describe it exactly; but I should imagine a fellow would feel much the same if he happened to be strolling through the jungle with a boyhood chum and met a tigress or a jaguar, or what not, and managed to shin up a tree and looked down and saw the friend of his youth vanishing into the undergrowth in the animal's slavering jaws. A sort of profound, prayerful relief, if you know what I mean, blended at the same time with a pang of pity. What I'm driving at is that, thankful as I was that I hadn't had to marry Honoria myself, I was sorry to see a real good chap like old Biffy copping it. I sucked down a spot of tea and began brooding over the business.”
― 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, The Code of the Woosters

“You are falling into your old error, Jeeves, of thinking that Gussie is a parrot. Fight against this. I shall add the oz.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves

“I suppose even Dictators have their chummy moments, when they put their feet up and relax with the boys, but it was plain from the outset that if Roderick Spode had a sunnier side, he had not come with any idea of exhibiting it now. His manner was curt. One sensed the absence of the bonhomous note.
...
Here he laid a hand on my shoulder, and I can't remember when I have experienced anything more unpleasant. Apart from what Jeeves would have called the symbolism of the action, he had a grip like the bite of a horse.
"Did you say 'Oh yes?'" he asked.
"Oh no," I assured him.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters

“We do not tell old friends beneath our roof-tree that they are an offence to the eyesight.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Right Ho Jeeves

“...there was practically one handwriting common to the whole school when it came to writing lines. It resembled the movements of a fly that had fallen into an ink-pot, and subsequently taken a little brisk exercise on a sheet of foolscap by way of restoring the circulation.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Politeness of Princes and Other School Stories

“[Aunt Dahlia to Bertie Wooster] 'To look at you, one would think you were just an ordinary sort of amiable idiot--certifiable, perhaps, but quite harmless. Yet, in reality, you are worse a scourge than the Black Death. I tell you, Bertie, when I contemplate you I seem to come up against all the underlying sorrow and horror of life with such a thud that I feel as if I had walked into a lamp post. I thought as much. Well, it needed but this. I don't see how things could possibly be worse than they are, but no doubt you will succeed in making them so. Your genius and insight will find the way. Carry on, Bertie. Yes, carry on. I am past caring now. I shall even find a faint interest in seeing into what darker and profounder abysses of hell you can plunge this home. Go to it, lad..I remember years ago, when you were in your cradle, being left alone with you one day and you nearly swallowed your rubber comforter and started turning purple. And I, ass that I was, took it out and saved your life. Let me tell you, young Bertie, it will go very hard with you if you ever swallow a rubber comforter again when only I am by to aid.”
― P G Wodehouse

“The awful part of the writing game is that you can never be sure the stuff is any good.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, P.G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters

“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

“Mr Wisdom,' said the girl who had led him into the presence.
'Ah,' said Howard Saxby, and there was a pause of perhaps three minutes, during which his needles clicked busily. 'Wisdom, did she say?'
'Yes. I wrote "Cocktail Time"'
'You couldn't have done better,' said Mr Saxby cordially. 'How's your wife, Mr Wisdom?'
Cosmo said he had no wife.
'Surely?'
"I'm a bachelor.'
Then Wordsworth was wrong. He said you were married to immortal verse. Excuse me a moment,' murmured Mr Saxby, applying himself to the sock again. 'I'm just turning the heel. Do you knit?'
'No.'
'Sleep does. It knits the ravelled sleave of care.'

(After a period of engrossed knitting, Cosmo coughs loudly to draw attention to his presence.)
'Goodness, you made me jump!' he (Saxby) said. 'Who are you?'
'My name, as I have already told you, is Wisdom'
'How did you get in?' asked Mr Saxby with a show of interest.
'I was shown in.'
'And stayed in. I see, Tennyson was right. Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers. Take a chair.'
'I have.'
'Take another,' said Mr Saxby hospitably.”
― P.G. Wodehouse

“These dreamer types do live, don't they?”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves