P. G. Wodehouse Quotes

379 Sourced Quotes

He expressed the opinion that the world was in a deplorable state. I said, 'Don't talk rot, old Tom Travers.' 'I am not accustomed to talk rot,' he said. 'Then, for a beginner,' I said, 'you do it dashed well.' And I think you will admit, boys and ladies and gentlemen, that that was telling him.

P. G. Wodehouse
I was reading in the paper the other day about those birds who are trying to split the atom, the nub being that they haven't the foggiest as to what will happen if they do. It may be all right. On the other hand, it may not be all right. And pretty silly a chap would feel, no doubt, if, having split the atom, he suddenly found the house going up in smoke and himself torn limb from limb.

P. G. Wodehouse
Aunt Agatha is like an elephant—not so much to look at, for in appearance she resembles more a well-bred vulture, but because she never forgets.

P. G. Wodehouse
Nannie Bruce, a tall, gangling light-heavyweight with a suggestion in her appearance of a private in the Grenadiers dressed up to play the title role in Charley's Aunt, was one of those doggedly faithful retainers who adhere to almost all old families like barnacles to the hulls of ships... She was as much a fixture as the stone lions or the funny smell in the attic.

P. G. Wodehouse
She laughed - a solo effort. Nothing in the prevailing circumstances made me feel like turning it into a duet.

P. G. Wodehouse
It was a harsh, rasping voice, in its timbre not unlike a sawmill.

P. G. Wodehouse
That's always the way in this world. The chappies you'd like to lend money to won't let you, whereas the chappies you don't want to lend it to will do everything except actually stand you on your head and lift the specie out of your pockets.

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

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
Not the suspicion of an inkling, if you see what I mean, that round the corner lurked the bitter awakening, stuffed eelskin in hand, waiting to sock me on the occiput.

P. G. Wodehouse
My Aunt Dahlia has a carrying voice... If all other sources of income failed, she could make a good living calling the cattle home across the Sands of Dee.

P. G. Wodehouse
Though never for an instant faltering in my opinion that Augustus Fink-Nottle was Nature's final word in cloth-headed guffins, I liked the man, wished him well.

P. G. Wodehouse
There came from without the hoof-beats of a galloping relative and Aunt Dahlia whizzed in.

P. G. Wodehouse
Dark hair fell in a sweep over his forehead. He looked like a man who would write vers libre, as indeed he did.

P. G. Wodehouse
Back horses or go down to Throgmorton Street and try to take it away from the Rothschilds, and I will applaud you as a shrewd and cautious financier. But to bet at golf is pure gambling.

P. G. Wodehouse
[of Spode] He was, as I had already been able to perceive, a breath-taking cove. About seven feet in height, and swathed in a plaid ulster which made him look about six feet across, he caught the eye and arrested it. It was as if Nature had intended to make a gorilla and had changed its mind at the last moment.

P. G. Wodehouse
Golf…is the infallible test. The man who can go into a patch of rough alone, with the knowledge that only God is watching him, and play his ball where it lies, is the man who will serve you faithfully and well.

P. G. Wodehouse
There was the man who seemed to be attempting to decieve his ball and lull it into a false sense of security by looking away from it and then making a lightning slash in the apparent hope of catching it off its guard.

P. G. Wodehouse
Sir Roderick Glossop…is always called a nerve specialist, because it sounds better, but everybody knows that he's really a sort of janitor to the looney-bin.

P. G. Wodehouse
It is not the being paid money in advance that jars the sensitive artist: it is the having to work.

P. G. Wodehouse
Bradbury Fisher shuddered from head to foot, and his legs wobbled like asparagus stalks.

P. G. Wodehouse
Then he rose and began to pace the room in an overwrought sort of way, like a zoo lion who has heard the dinner-gong go and is hoping the keeper won't forget him in the general distribution.

P. G. Wodehouse
There are girls, few perhaps but to be found if one searches carefully, who when their advice is ignored and disaster ensues, do not say "I told you so". Mavis was not of their number.

P. G. Wodehouse
It ought to be a criminal offence for women to dye their hair. Especially red. What the devil do women do that sort of thing for?

P. G. Wodehouse
Henry glanced hastily at the mirror. Yes, he did look rather old. He must have overdone some of the lines on his forehead. He looked something between a youngish centenarian and a nonagenarian who had seen a good deal of trouble.

P. G. Wodehouse