P. G. Wodehouse Quotes

379 Sourced Quotes

'Have you ever seen Spode eat asparagus?'
'No.'
'Revolting. It alters one's whole conception of Man as Nature's last word.'

P. G. Wodehouse
Many a fellow who looks like the dominant male and has himself photographed smoking a pipe curls up like carbon paper when confronted by an aunt.

P. G. Wodehouse
One of the first lessons life teaches us is that on these occasions of back-chat between the delicately-nurtured a man should retire into the offing, curl up in a ball, and imitate the prudent tactics of the opossum, which, when danger is in the air, pretends to be dead, frequently going to the length of hanging out crêpe and instructing its friends to stand round and say what a pity it all is.

P. G. Wodehouse
Mr Beach was too well bred to be inquisitive, but his eyebrows here not. 'Ah!' he said. '?', cried the eyebrows. '? ? ?' Ashe ignored the eyebrows.... Mr Beach's eyebrows were still mutely urging him to reveal all, but Ashe directed his gaze at that portion of the room which Mr Beach did not fill. He was hanged if he was going to let himself be hypnotized by a pair of eyebrows into incriminating himself.

P. G. Wodehouse
My Aunt Agatha, the curse of the Home Counties and a menace to one and all.

P. G. Wodehouse
What you want, my lad, and what you're going to get are two very different things.

P. G. Wodehouse
Naturally a detective doesn't want to look like a detective, and give the whole thing away right at the start.

P. G. Wodehouse
Roderick Spode? Big chap with a small moustache and the sort of eye that can open an oyster at sixty paces?

P. G. Wodehouse
No one so dislikes being punished unjustly as the person who might have been punished justly on scores of previous occasions, if he had only been found out.

P. G. Wodehouse
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
Just another proof, of course, of what I often say - it takes all sorts to make a world.

P. G. Wodehouse
Besides, isn't there something in the book of rules about a man may not marry his cousin? Or am I thinking of grandmothers?
"My dear Tuppy, does one bandy a woman's name?"
"One does if one doesn't want one's ruddy head pulled off."
I saw that it was a special case.

P. G. Wodehouse
Men capable of governing empires fail to control a small white ball, which presents no difficulties whetever to others with one ounce more brain than a cuckoo clock. I wish to goodness I knew the man who invented this infernal game. I'd strangle him. But I suppose he's been dead for ages. Still, I could go and jump on his grave.

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
It is no use telling me that there are bad aunts and good aunts. At the core, they are all alike. Sooner or later, out pops the cloven hoof.

P. G. Wodehouse
When I was a child, I used to think that rabbits were gnomes, and that if I held my breath and stayed quite still, I should see the fairy queen.. Indicating with a reserved gesture that this was just the sort of loony thing I should have expected her to think as a child, I returned to the point.

P. G. Wodehouse
He then gave a hideous laugh and added that, if anybody was interested in his plans, he was going to join the Foreign Legion, that cohort of the damned in which broken men may toil and die and dying, forget. 'Beau Widgeon?' said the Egg, impressed. 'What ho!'

P. G. Wodehouse
The brains of members of the Press departments of motion-picture studios resemble soup at a cheap restaurant. It is wiser not to stir them.

P. G. Wodehouse
Mr Howard Saxby, literary agent, was knitting a sock. He knitted a good deal, he would tell you if you asked him, to keep himself from smoking, adding that he also smoked a good deal to keep himself from knitting.

P. G. Wodehouse
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.

P. G. Wodehouse
He uttered a coarse expression which I wouldn't have thought he would have known. It just shows that you can bury yourself in the country and still somehow acquire a vocabulary. No doubt one picks up things from the neighbours — the vicar, the local doctor, the man who brings the milk, and so on.

P. G. Wodehouse
In build and appearance, Tuppy somewhat resembles a bulldog, and his aspect now was that of one of these fine animals who has just been refused a slice of cake.

P. G. Wodehouse
She cried in a voice that hit me between the eyebrows and went out at the back of my head.
"Have you ever heard of Market Snodsbury Grammar School?"
"Never."
"It's a grammar school at Market Snodsbury."
I told her a little frigidly that I had divined as much.

P. G. Wodehouse
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.

P. G. Wodehouse
It was a cold, disapproving gaze, such as a fastidious luncher who was not fond of caterpillars might have directed at one which he had discovered in his portion of salad...

P. G. Wodehouse