The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection Quotes

“Just as you say, sir. There is a letter on the tray, sir.” “By Jove, Jeeves, that was practically poetry. Rhymed, did you notice?”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“I mean, if you fool about too long at the start, trying to establish atmosphere, as they call it, and all that sort of rot, you fail to grip and the customers walk out on you.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“His was a simple mind, able to amuse itself with simple things.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“But lots of fellows have asked me who my tailor is.” “Doubtless in order to avoid him, sir.” “He’s supposed to be one of the best men in London.” “I am saying nothing against his moral character, sir.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“I felt as if I had stepped on the place where the last stair ought to have been, but wasn’t.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“you can’t start painting portraits till people come along and ask you to, and they won’t come and ask you to until you’ve painted a lot first. This makes it kind of difficult for a chappie.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“He would not leave the tangled lives of those around him to adjust themselves. He blundered in and tried to help. He nearly always produced a definite result, but seldom the one at which he aimed.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“Ask anyone who knows me, and they will tell you that after two months of my company, what the normal person feels is that that will about do for the present. Indeed, I have known people who couldn’t stick it out for more than a few”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“A slight throbbing about the temples told me that this discussion had reached saturation point.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“mean to say, there is something about their personality that paralyses the vocal cords and reduces the contents of the brain to cauliflower.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“his really sporting behaviour in”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“It is unfair to judge a lady’s character from her face, at a moment when she is in a position of physical discomfort.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“Be firm, my moral pecker,’ thought Gethryn, and braced himself up for conflict.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“It is to be questioned whether in the whole length and breadth of the world there is a more admirable spot for a man in love to pass a day or two than the typical English village.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“Tears are the Turkish bath of the soul.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“Mike proceeded to the meeting with the air of an about-to-be-washed dog.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“Uncle Tom’,” said Aunt Dahlia a little testily. “Every time you do it, I expect to see him turn black and start playing the banjo.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“Jeeves,” I said, “we’ve backed a winner.” “Sir?” “Coming to this place, I mean. Here we are in a topping hotel, with fine weather, good cooking, golf, bathing, gambling of every variety, and my Aunt Agatha miles away on the other side of the English Channel. I ask you, what could be sweeter?”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“If you imagine for one moment that you are going to get out of distributing those prizes, you are very much mistaken. Deeply regret Brinkley Court hundred miles from London, as unable hit you with a brick. Love. Travers.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“Because I have already attended to the matter, sir.” “What?” “Yes, sir. I decided, after all, to acquiesce in your wishes.” I stared at the man, astounded. I was deeply moved. Well, I mean, wouldn’t any chap who had been going about thinking that the old feudal spirit was dead and then suddenly found it wasn’t have been deeply moved? “Jeeves,” I said, “I am touched.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“It was a dashed tricky thing, of course, to have to decide on the spur of the moment. 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.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs, sir.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“It was perfectly amazing, the way her mere presence seemed to wipe speech from my lips—and mine, for that matter, from hers. It began to look as if our married life together would be rather like twenty years among the Trappist monks.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“What on earth did he do after that? London late at night—or even in the daytime, for that matter—is no place for a man in scarlet tights.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“Look at the tall, thin one with the face like a motor-mascot. Has he ever done an honest day’s work in his life? No! A prowler, a trifler, and a blood-sucker! And I bet he still owes his tailor for those trousers!”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“I’ve often wondered since then how these murderer fellows manage to keep in shape while they’re contemplating their next effort. I had a much simpler sort of job on hand, and the thought of it rattled me to such an extent in the night watches that I was a perfect wreck next day. Dark circles under the eyes—”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“And when a woman says “Oh!” like that, it means all the bad words she’d love to say if she only knew them.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“You could tell it was classical, because the banjo players were leaning back and chewing gum; and in New York restaurants only death or a classical speciality can stop banjoists.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“A breezy disregard for the preservation of the pence was a family trait.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection

“Scrubby, impecunious men drift to and fro there, waiting for the gods to provide something easy; and the prudent man, conscious of the possession of loose change, whizzes through the danger zone at his best speed, ‘like one that on a lonesome road doth walk in fear and dread, and having once turned round walks on, and turns no more his head, because he knows a frightful fiend doth close behind him tread.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Ultimate Wodehouse Collection