The Gem Collector Quotes

“I really preferred to walk. I have only just landed in England from New York, and it's quite a treat to walk on an English country road again.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“Journeys end in lovers meeting.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“Every man is liable on occasion to behave like a sulky schoolboy”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“The water as a topic of conversation dried up.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“I knew a man once who stammered," said Jimmy. "He used to chew dog biscuit while he was speaking. It cured him. Besides being nutritious.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“distance lends enchantment to the view,”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“In a cozy corner of the electric flame department of the infernal regions there stands a little silver gridiron. It is the private property of his Satanic majesty, and is reserved exclusively for the man who invented amateur theatricals.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“Between camaraderie and love there is a broad gulf.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“He lit another cigar, and began to brood over the folly of mankind.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“It's a hell for the poor, in New York. An iron, grinding city. It frightens you. It's so big and hard and cruel. It takes the fight out of you.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“This man's brother I was telling you about," said Spennie, "says there's only one rhyme in the English language to 'burglar', and that's 'gurgler'. Unless you count 'pergola', he says——”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“Brainy badinage of that sort is exchanged every day in the best society. You should hear dukes and earls! The wit! the esprit! The flow of soul!”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“Nothing upsets a fowl more than having to wait for dinner.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“The rose that lives its little hour is prized beyond the sculptured flower.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“By the way, one generally shakes hands in the smartest circles. Yours seem to be down there somewhere. Might I trouble you? Right. Got it? Thanks!”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“Lady Blunt had come up, flushed and triumphant, having left the solitary porter a demoralized wreck.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“Sir Thomas extended three fingers. Jimmy extended two, and the handshake was not a success.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“Wait till you see her. Sort of woman who makes you feel that your hands are the color of a frightful tomato and the size of a billiard table, if you know what I mean.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“Whatever his faults, he had strength; and after her experience of married life with a weak man, Lady Jane had come to the conclusion that strength was the only male quality worth consideration.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“England still firmly believes that wealth accrues to every resident of New York by some mysterious process not understandable of the Briton.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“Lady Jane held the English view that visitors like to be left to themselves.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“Besides, a burglar is only a practical socialist. Philosophers talk a lot about the redistribution of wealth. The burglar goes out and does it.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“Life," said Wesson, who had had time for reflection, "is a house which we all burgle. We enter it uninvited, take all that we can lay hands on, and go out again.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“I see. Before you fell a victim to the feverish desire for reckless speculation which is so marked a characteristic of the American business man, what?”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“I say," said Jimmy, as they moved away, "who is that fellow Wesson?" "Oh, a man," said Molly vaguely. "There's no need to be fulsome," said Jimmy. "He can't hear.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“We are going to do a play, and we want another man. The man who was going to play one of the parts has had to go back to London." "Poor devil! Fancy having to leave a place like this and go back to that dingy, overrated town.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“Nobody is at his best in the matter of explanations if a lady whom he knows to be possessed of a firm belief in the incurable weakness of his intellect is looking fixedly at him during the recital.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“As Nebuchadnezzar is reported to have said of his vegetarian diet, it may have been wholesome, but it was not good.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“Pat, you're absurd," laughed Lady Jane. "I won't have you littering up the house with great, clumsy detectives. You must remember that you aren't in horrid New York now, where everybody you meet wants to rob you. Who is it that you suspect? Who is the—what is the word you're so fond of? Crook. That's it. Who is the crook?”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector

“You know, you smoke too much, Pat," said his wife, seizing the opening with the instinct which makes an Irishman at a fair hit every head he sees.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Gem Collector