Quotes by P.G. Wodehouse

[T]he success of every novel -- if its 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 them., Issue 64, Winter 1975)

My Aunt Dahlia, who runs a womans paper called Miladys Boudoir, had recently backed me into a corner and made me promise to write her a few words for her Husbands and Brothers page on What the Well-Dressed Man is Wearing. I believe in encouraging aunts, when deserving; and, as there are many worse eggs than her knocking about the metrop, I had consented blithely. But I give you my honest word that if I had had the foggiest notion of what I was letting myself in for, not even a nephews devotion would have kept me from giving her the raspberry. A deuce of a job it had been, taxing the physique to the utmost. I dont wonder now that all these author blokes have bald heads and faces like birds who have suffered.

I never feel really comfortable unless I am either actually writing or have a story going. I could not stop writing.

The awful part of the writing game is that you can never be sure the stuff is any good.

When a girl uses six derogatory adjectives in her attempt to paint the portrait of the loved one, it means something. One may indicate a merely temporary tiff. Six is big stuff.

-What do ties matter, Jeeves, at a time like this?There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter

This was not Aunt Dahlia, my good and kindly aunt, but my Aunt Agatha, the one who chews broken bottles and kills rats with her teeth.

Hes such a dear, Mr. Garnet. A beautiful, pure, bred Persian. He has taken prizes.Hes always taking something - generally food.

One of the poets, whose name I cannot recall, has a passage, which I am unable at the moment to remember, in one of his works, which for the time being has slipped my mind, which hits off admirably this age-old situation.

There is, of course, this to be said for the Omnibus Book in general and this one in particular. When you buy it, you have got something. The bulk of this volume makes it almost the ideal paper-weight. The number of its pages assures its posessor of plenty of shaving paper on his vacation. Place upon the waistline and jerked up and down each morning, it will reduce embonpoint and strengthen the abdominal muscles. And those still at their public school will find that between, say, Caesars Commentaries in limp cloth and this Jeeves book there is no comparison as a missile in an inter-study brawl.

This is peculiarly an age in which each of us may, if he do but search diligently, find the literature suited to his mental powers.

There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature.

Well, you know, there are limits to the sacred claims of friendship.

Great pals weve always been. In fact there was a time when I had an idea I was in love with Cynthia. However, it blew over. A dashed pretty and lively and attractive girl, mind you, but full of ideals and all that. I may be wronging her, but I have an idea that shes the sort of girl who would want a fellow to carve out a career and what not. I know Ive heard her speak favourably of Napoleon. So what with one thing and another the jolly old frenzy sort of petered out, and now were just pals. I think shes a topper, and she thinks me next door to a looney, so everythings nice and matey.

I mean, if youre asking a fellow to come out of a room so that you can dismember him with a carving knife, its absurd to tack a sir on to every sentence. The two things dont go together.

Love is a delicate plant that needs constant tending and nurturing, and this cannot be done by snorting at the adored object like a gas explosion and calling her friends lice.

Sober or blotto, this is your motto: keep muddling through.

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 TimeYou couldnt have done better, said Mr Saxby cordially. Hows your wife, Mr Wisdom?Cosmo said he had no wife.Surely?Im 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. Im 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 WisdomHow 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.

You probably think that being a guest in your aunts house I would hesitate to butter you all over the front lawn and dance on the fragments in hobnailed boots, but you are mistaken. It would be a genuine pleasure. By an odd coincidence I brought a pair of hobnailed boots with me! So saying, and recognising a good exit line when he saw one, he strode out, and after an interval of tense meditation I followed him. (Spode to Wooster)

Lady Constances lips tightened, and a moment passed during which it seemed always a fifty-fifty chance that a handsome silver ink-pot would fly through the air in the direction of her brothers head.