Search quotes

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
ca15221	And she's got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity the girl who marries you will need.	marriage	P.G. Wodehouse
bd9cade	The voice of Love seemed to call to me, but it was a wrong number.	love	P.G. Wodehouse
21fd992	There are moments, Jeeves, when one asks oneself, 'Do trousers matter?'" "The mood will pass, sir."	humor dejection bad-mood clothes	P.G. Wodehouse
034f6e9	It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.	people humor taking-advantage apologizing	P.G. Wodehouse
17c3293	Red hair, sir, in my opinion, is dangerous.	humor redheads	P.G. Wodehouse
8cd55f7	At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies.	men women dexterity poise superiority	P.G. Wodehouse
57b26f3	I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.	humor disgruntlement	P.G. Wodehouse
4e2ae80	Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoy's Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city's reservoir, he turns to the cupboards, only to find the vodka bottle empty.	sorrow humor moroseness tolstoy satire russia	P.G. Wodehouse
eef17a2	A melancholy-looking man, he had the appearance of one who has searched for the leak in life's gas-pipe with a lighted candle.	humor melancholy wit	P.G. Wodehouse
8458c6a	If there is one thing I dislike, it is the man who tries to air his grievances when I wish to air mine.	selfishness	P.G. Wodehouse
178fada	Unseen in the background, Fate was quietly slipping lead into the boxing-glove.	fate humor top-8 unfairness misfortune	P.G. Wodehouse
8a4154f	I am not always good and noble. I am the hero of this story, but I have my off moments.	humor imperfect	P.G. Wodehouse
41ada66	The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.	humor hunting perspective shooting	P.G. Wodehouse
191b608	A certain critic -- for such men, I regret to say, do exist -- made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained 'all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.' He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have out-generalled the man this ti..		P.G. Wodehouse
fdb1743	Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of love, sir. It merely mummifies its corpse.	marriage humor love lack-of-feeling lovelessness married-life matrimony sarcasm	P.G. Wodehouse
d3fc81c	You would not enjoy Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound.	nietzsche	P.G. Wodehouse
3cb8133	As we grow older and realize more clearly the limitations of human happiness, we come to see that the only real and abiding pleasure in life is to give pleasure to other people.		P.G. Wodehouse
0e87075	It was one of those cases where you approve the broad, general principle of an idea but can't help being in a bit of a twitter at the prospect of putting it into practical effect. I explained this to Jeeves, and he said much the same thing had bothered Hamlet.	shakespeare humor jeeves hesitation hamlet	P.G. Wodehouse
4b49df7	It is true of course, that I have a will of iron, but it can be switched off if the circumstances seem to demand it.		P.G. Wodehouse
e8f9ebd	What's the use of a great city having temptations if fellows don't yield to them?	temptation new-york-city	P.G. Wodehouse
af7f623	Hell, it is well known, has no fury like a woman who wants her tea and can't get it.		P.G. Wodehouse
ef5fe73	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.	love	P.G. Wodehouse
55c7c04	It was one of the dullest speeches I ever heard. The Agee woman told us for three quarters of an hour how she came to write her beastly book, when a simple apology was all that was required.	writing humor bad-writing dullness	P.G. Wodehouse
365086e	We Woosters do not lightly forget. At least, we do - some things - appointments, and people's birthdays, and letters to post, and all that - but not an absolutely bally insult like the above.		P.G. Wodehouse
2ba66fc	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		P.G. Wodehouse
f5e7830	Chumps always make the best husbands. When you marry, Sally, grab a chump. Tap his head first, and if it rings solid, don't hesitate. All the unhappy marriages come from husbands having brains. What good are brains to a man? They only unsettle him.		P.G. Wodehouse
f1d812c	Well, you know, there are limits to the sacred claims of friendship.		P.G. Wodehouse
8eabe3e	A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour.	moroseness subconscious misery	P.G. Wodehouse
85955d1	Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French.	humor englishmen languages french	P.G. Wodehouse
8ca0e4f	One of the Georges - I forget which - once said that a certain number of hours' sleep each night - I cannot recall at the moment how many - made a man something which for the time being has slipped my memory.	sleep	P.G. Wodehouse
c963721	Gussie, a glutton for punishment, stared at himself in the mirror.	humor face ugliness mirror	P.G. Wodehouse
d69289d	I flung open the door. I got a momentary flash of about a hundred and fifteen cats of all sizes and colours scrapping in the middle of the room, and then they all shot past me with a rush and out of the front door; and all that was left of the mobscene was the head of a whacking big fish, lying on the carpet and staring up at me in a rather austere sort of way, as if it wanted a written explanation and apology.	fish humor	P.G. Wodehouse
93397d1	You would be miserable if you had to go through life with a human doormat with 'Welcome' written on him. You want some one made of sterner stuff. You want, as it were, a sparring-partner, some one with whom you can quarrel happily with the certain knowledge that he will not curl up in a ball for you to kick, but will be there with the return wallop.		P.G. Wodehouse
2be470c	You're one of those guys who can make a party just by leaving it. It's a great gift.		P.G. Wodehouse
b67a766	I suppose the fundamental distinction between Shakespeare and myself is one of treatment. We get our effects differently. Take the familiar farcical situation of someone who suddenly discovers that something unpleasant is standing behind them. Here is how Shakespeare handles it in "The Winter's Tale," Act 3, Scene 3: ANTIGONUS: Farewell! A lullaby too rough. I never saw the heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour! Well may I get aboard! Thi..	shakespeare humor stage-directions winters-tale wooster jeeves	P.G. Wodehouse
959e803	I don't want to wrong anybody, so I won't go so far as to say that she actually wrote poetry, but her conversation, to my mind, was of a nature calculated to excite the liveliest of suspicions. Well, I mean to say, when a girl suddenly asks you out of a blue sky if you don't sometimes feel that the stars are God's daisy-chain, you begin to think a bit.		P.G. Wodehouse
c25bf1e	Employers are like horses -- they require management.	management horses	P.G. Wodehouse
ed35e9f	I am Psmith," said the old Etonian reverently. "There is a preliminary P before the name. This, however, is silent. Like the tomb. Compare such words as ptarmigan, psalm, and phthisis."		P.G. Wodehouse
aca3207	I mean, imagine how some unfortunate Master Criminal would feel, on coming down to do a murder at the old Grange, if he found that not only was Sherlock Holmes putting in the weekend there, but Hercule Poirot, as well." ~ Bertram "Bertie" Wooster"	wooster jeeves wodehouse sherlock-holmes	P.G. Wodehouse
32f73ba	Intoxicated? The word did not express it by a mile. He was oiled, boiled, fried, plastered, whiffled, sozzled, and blotto.	synonyms	P.G. Wodehouse
c56c09c	A]lways get to the dialogue as soon as possible. I always feel the thing to go for is speed. Nothing puts the reader off more than a big slab of prose at the start.	writing dialogue	P.G. Wodehouse
378484a	It's a funny thing about looking for things. If you hunt for a needle in a haystack you don't find it. If you don't give a darn whether you ever see the needle or not it runs into you the first time you lean against the stack.		P.G. Wodehouse
9f17cbd	Warm-hearted! I should think he has to wear asbestos vests!		P.G. Wodehouse
6d919d3	I mean, if you're asking a fellow to come out of a room so that you can dismember him with a carving knife, it's absurd to tack a 'sir' on to every sentence. The two things don't go together.	thank-you-jeeves p-g-wodehouse	P.G. Wodehouse

And she's got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity the girl who marries you will need.

P.G. Wodehouse

bd9cade

The voice of Love seemed to call to me, but it was a wrong number.

love

P.G. Wodehouse

21fd992

There are moments, Jeeves, when one asks oneself, 'Do trousers matter?'" "The mood will pass, sir."

humor dejection bad-mood clothes

P.G. Wodehouse

034f6e9

It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.

people humor taking-advantage apologizing

P.G. Wodehouse

17c3293

Red hair, sir, in my opinion, is dangerous.

humor redheads

P.G. Wodehouse

8cd55f7

At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies.

men women dexterity poise superiority

P.G. Wodehouse

57b26f3

I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.

humor disgruntlement

P.G. Wodehouse

4e2ae80

Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoy's Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city's reservoir, he turns to the cupboards, only to find the vodka bottle empty.

sorrow humor moroseness tolstoy satire russia

P.G. Wodehouse

eef17a2

A melancholy-looking man, he had the appearance of one who has searched for the leak in life's gas-pipe with a lighted candle.

humor melancholy wit

P.G. Wodehouse

8458c6a

If there is one thing I dislike, it is the man who tries to air his grievances when I wish to air mine.

selfishness

P.G. Wodehouse

178fada

Unseen in the background, Fate was quietly slipping lead into the boxing-glove.

fate humor top-8 unfairness misfortune

P.G. Wodehouse

8a4154f

I am not always good and noble. I am the hero of this story, but I have my off moments.

humor imperfect

P.G. Wodehouse

41ada66

The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.

humor hunting perspective shooting

P.G. Wodehouse

191b608

A certain critic -- for such men, I regret to say, do exist -- made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained 'all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.' He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have out-generalled the man this ti..

P.G. Wodehouse

fdb1743

Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of love, sir. It merely mummifies its corpse.

marriage humor love lack-of-feeling lovelessness married-life matrimony sarcasm

P.G. Wodehouse

d3fc81c

You would not enjoy Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound.

nietzsche

P.G. Wodehouse

3cb8133

As we grow older and realize more clearly the limitations of human happiness, we come to see that the only real and abiding pleasure in life is to give pleasure to other people.

P.G. Wodehouse

0e87075

It was one of those cases where you approve the broad, general principle of an idea but can't help being in a bit of a twitter at the prospect of putting it into practical effect. I explained this to Jeeves, and he said much the same thing had bothered Hamlet.

shakespeare humor jeeves hesitation hamlet

P.G. Wodehouse

4b49df7

It is true of course, that I have a will of iron, but it can be switched off if the circumstances seem to demand it.

P.G. Wodehouse

e8f9ebd

What's the use of a great city having temptations if fellows don't yield to them?

temptation new-york-city

P.G. Wodehouse

af7f623

Hell, it is well known, has no fury like a woman who wants her tea and can't get it.

P.G. Wodehouse

ef5fe73

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.

love

P.G. Wodehouse

55c7c04

It was one of the dullest speeches I ever heard. The Agee woman told us for three quarters of an hour how she came to write her beastly book, when a simple apology was all that was required.

writing humor bad-writing dullness

P.G. Wodehouse

365086e

We Woosters do not lightly forget. At least, we do - some things - appointments, and people's birthdays, and letters to post, and all that - but not an absolutely bally insult like the above.

P.G. Wodehouse

2ba66fc

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

P.G. Wodehouse

f5e7830

Chumps always make the best husbands. When you marry, Sally, grab a chump. Tap his head first, and if it rings solid, don't hesitate. All the unhappy marriages come from husbands having brains. What good are brains to a man? They only unsettle him.

P.G. Wodehouse

f1d812c

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

P.G. Wodehouse

8eabe3e

A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour.

moroseness subconscious misery

P.G. Wodehouse

85955d1

Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French.

humor englishmen languages french

P.G. Wodehouse

8ca0e4f

One of the Georges - I forget which - once said that a certain number of hours' sleep each night - I cannot recall at the moment how many - made a man something which for the time being has slipped my memory.

sleep

P.G. Wodehouse

c963721

Gussie, a glutton for punishment, stared at himself in the mirror.

humor face ugliness mirror

P.G. Wodehouse

d69289d

I flung open the door. I got a momentary flash of about a hundred and fifteen cats of all sizes and colours scrapping in the middle of the room, and then they all shot past me with a rush and out of the front door; and all that was left of the mobscene was the head of a whacking big fish, lying on the carpet and staring up at me in a rather austere sort of way, as if it wanted a written explanation and apology.

fish humor

P.G. Wodehouse

93397d1

You would be miserable if you had to go through life with a human doormat with 'Welcome' written on him. You want some one made of sterner stuff. You want, as it were, a sparring-partner, some one with whom you can quarrel happily with the certain knowledge that he will not curl up in a ball for you to kick, but will be there with the return wallop.

P.G. Wodehouse

2be470c

You're one of those guys who can make a party just by leaving it. It's a great gift.

P.G. Wodehouse

b67a766

I suppose the fundamental distinction between Shakespeare and myself is one of treatment. We get our effects differently. Take the familiar farcical situation of someone who suddenly discovers that something unpleasant is standing behind them. Here is how Shakespeare handles it in "The Winter's Tale," Act 3, Scene 3: ANTIGONUS: Farewell! A lullaby too rough. I never saw the heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour! Well may I get aboard! Thi..

shakespeare humor stage-directions winters-tale wooster jeeves

P.G. Wodehouse

959e803

I don't want to wrong anybody, so I won't go so far as to say that she actually wrote poetry, but her conversation, to my mind, was of a nature calculated to excite the liveliest of suspicions. Well, I mean to say, when a girl suddenly asks you out of a blue sky if you don't sometimes feel that the stars are God's daisy-chain, you begin to think a bit.

P.G. Wodehouse

c25bf1e

Employers are like horses -- they require management.

management horses

P.G. Wodehouse

ed35e9f

I am Psmith," said the old Etonian reverently. "There is a preliminary P before the name. This, however, is silent. Like the tomb. Compare such words as ptarmigan, psalm, and phthisis."

P.G. Wodehouse

aca3207

I mean, imagine how some unfortunate Master Criminal would feel, on coming down to do a murder at the old Grange, if he found that not only was Sherlock Holmes putting in the weekend there, but Hercule Poirot, as well." ~ Bertram "Bertie" Wooster"

wooster jeeves wodehouse sherlock-holmes

P.G. Wodehouse

32f73ba

Intoxicated? The word did not express it by a mile. He was oiled, boiled, fried, plastered, whiffled, sozzled, and blotto.

synonyms

P.G. Wodehouse

c56c09c

A]lways get to the dialogue as soon as possible. I always feel the thing to go for is speed. Nothing puts the reader off more than a big slab of prose at the start.

writing dialogue

P.G. Wodehouse

378484a

It's a funny thing about looking for things. If you hunt for a needle in a haystack you don't find it. If you don't give a darn whether you ever see the needle or not it runs into you the first time you lean against the stack.

P.G. Wodehouse

9f17cbd

Warm-hearted! I should think he has to wear asbestos vests!

P.G. Wodehouse

6d919d3

I mean, if you're asking a fellow to come out of a room so that you can dismember him with a carving knife, it's absurd to tack a 'sir' on to every sentence. The two things don't go together.

thank-you-jeeves p-g-wodehouse

P.G. Wodehouse