“You would not enjoy Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“What's the use of a great city having temptations if fellows don't yield to them?”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“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, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“Well, you know, there are limits to the sacred claims of friendship.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“Employers are like horses — they require management.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“I expect I shall feel better after tea.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“He looked haggard and careworn, like a Borgia who has suddenly remembered that he has forgotten to shove cyanide in the consommé, and the dinner-gong due any moment.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“Don't leave me, Bertie. I'm lost."
"What do you mean, lost?"
"I came out for a walk and suddenly discovered after a mile or two that I didn't know where on earth I was. I've been wandering round in circles for hours."
"Why didn't you ask the way?"
"I can't speak a word of French."
"Well, why didn't you call a taxi?"
"I suddenly discovered I'd left all my money at my hotel."
"You could have taken a cab and paid it when you got to the hotel."
"Yes, but I suddenly discovered, dash it, that I'd forgotten its name."
And there in a nutshell you have Charles Edward Biffen. As vague and woollen-headed a blighter as ever bit a sandwich.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“I say, Bertie, is it really true that you were once engaged to Honoria?"
"It is."
Biffy coughed.
"How did you get out - I mean, what was the nature of the tragedy that prevented the marriage?"
"Jeeves worked it. He thought out the entire scheme."
"I think, before I go," said Biffy thoughtfully, "I'll just step into the kitchen and have a word with Jeeves."
I felt that the situation called for complete candour.
"Biffy, old egg," I said, "as man to man, do you want to oil out of this thing?"
"Bertie, old cork," said Biffy earnestly, "as one friend to another, I do.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“It was one of those still evenings you get in the summer, when you can hear a snail clear its throat a mile away.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“If ever there was a bloke at the very mention of whose name it would be excusable for people to tremble like aspens, that bloke is Sir Roderick Glossop. He has an enormous bald head, all the hair which ought to be on it seeming to have run into his eyebrows, and his eyes go through you like a couple of Death Rays.
"How are you, how are you, how are you?" I said, overcoming a slight desire to leap backwards out of the window.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“The Paddock was one of those medium-sized houses with a goodish bit of very tidy garden and a carefully rolled gravel drive curving past a shrubbery that looked as if it had just come back from the dry cleaner - the sort of house you take one look at and say to yourself, "Somebody's aunt lives there.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“Well, if he comes when I'm out, tell him to wait. And now, Jeeves, mes gants, mon chapeau, et le whangee de monsieur. I must be popping.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“Honoria, you see, is one of those robust, dynamic girls with the muscles of a welter-weight and a laugh like a squadron of cavalry charging over a tin bridge. A beastly thing to have to face over the breakfast table. Brainy, moreover. The sort of girl who reduces you to pulp with sixteen sets of tennis and a few rounds of golf and then comes down to dinner as fresh as a daisy, expecting you to take an intelligent interest in Freud.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“Change of scene is the thing. I head of a man. Girl refused him. Man went abroad. Two months later girl wired him "Come back, Muriel." Man started to write out a reply; suddenly found that he couldn't remember girl's surname; so never answered at all, and lived happily ever after.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“A fellow told me one about Wembley yesterday," I said, to help on the cheery flow of conversation. "Stop me if you've heard it before. Chap goes up to deaf chap outside the exhibition and says, "Is this Wembley?" "Hey?" says deaf chap. "Is this Wembley?" says chap. "Hey?" says deaf chap. "Is this Wembley?" says chap. "No, Thursday," says deaf chap. Ha, ha, I mean, what?"
The merry laughter froze on my lips. Sir Roderick sort of just waggled an eyebrow in my direction and I saw that it was back to the basket for Bertram. I never met a man who had such a knack of making a fellow feel like a waste-product.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“Do you mind not intoning the responses, Jeeves?" I said. "This is a most complicated story for a man with a headache to have to tell, and if you interrupt you'll make me lose the thread. As a favour to me, therefore, don't do it. Just nod every now and then to show that you're following me."
I closed my eyes and marshalled the facts.
"To start with then, Jeeves, you may or may not know that Mr Sipperley is practically dependent on his Aunt Vera."
"Would that be Miss Sipperley of the Paddock, Beckley-on-the-Moor, in Yorkshire, sir?"
"Yes. Don't tell me you know her!"
"Not personally, sir. But I have a cousin residing in the village who has some slight acquaintance with Miss Sipperley. He has described her to me as an imperious and quick-tempered old lady. ... But I beg your pardon, sir, I should have nodded."
"Quite right, you should have nodded. Yes, Jeeves, you should have nodded. But it's too late now.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“I'm bound to say I was not feeling entirely at my ease. There is something about the man that is calculated to strike terror into the stoutest heart. If ever there was a bloke at the very mention of whose name it would be excusable for people to tremble like aspens, that bloke is Sir Roderick Glossop. He has an enormous bald head, all the hair which ought to be on it seeming to have run into his eyebrows, and his eyes go through you like a couple of Death Rays.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“He was like some prophet of old, scourging the sins of the people. He leaped about in a frenzy of inspiration till I feared he would do himself an injury. Sometimes he expressed himself in a somewhat odd manner, but every word carried conviction. He showed me New York in its true colours. He showed me the vanity and wickedness of sitting in gilded haunts of vice, eating lobster when decent people should be in bed.
'He said that the tango and the fox-trot were devices of the devil to drag people down into the Bottomless Pit. He said that there was more sin in ten minutes with a negro banjo orchestra than in all the ancient revels of Nineveh and Babylon. And when he stood on one leg and pointed right at where I was sitting and shouted "This means you!" I could have sunk through the floor.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“What on earth are you doing in Paris?" I asked.
"Bertie, old man," said Biffy solemnly, "I came here to try and forget."
"Well, you've certainly succeeded.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“I mean to say, millions of people, no doubt, are so constituted that they scream with joy and excitement at the spectacle of a stuffed porcupine-fish or a glass jar of seeds from Western Australia - but not Bertram. No; if you will take the word of one who would not deceive you, not Bertram. By the time we had tottered out of the Gold Coast village and were working towards the Palace of Machinery, everything pointed to my shortly executing a quiet sneak in the direction of that rather jolly Planters' Bar in the West Indian section. ...
There are certain moments in life when words are not needed. I looked at Biffy, Biffy looked at me. A perfect understanding linked our two souls.
"?"
"!"
Three minutes later we had joined the Planters.
I have never been in the West Indies, but I am in a position to state that in certain of the fundamentals of life they are streets ahead of our European civilisation. The man behind the counter, as kindly a bloke as I ever wish to meet, seemed to guess our requirements the moment we hove in view. Scarcely had our elbows touched the wood before he was leaping to and fro, bringing down a new bottle with each leap. A planter, apparently, does not consider he has had a drink unless it contains at least seven ingredients, and I'm not saying, mind you, that he isn't right. The man behind the bar told us the things were called Green Swizzles; and, if ever I marry and have a son, Green Swizzle Wooster is the name that will go down on the register, in memory of the day his father's life was saved at Wembley.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“Sippy had described them as England's premier warts, and it looked to me as if he might be about right. Professor Pringle was a thinnish, baldish, dyspeptic-lookingish cove with an eye like a haddock, while Mrs Pringle's aspect was that of one who had had bad news round about the year 1900 and never really got over it. And I was just staggering under the impact of these two when I was introduced to a couple of ancient females with shawls all over them.
"No doubt you remember my mother?" said Professor Pringle mournfully, indicating Exhibit A.
"Oh - ah!" I said, achieving a bit of a beam.
"And my aunt," sighed the Prof, as if things were getting worse and worse.
"Well, well, well!" I said shooting another beam in the direction of Exhibit B.
"They were saying only this morning that they remembered you," groaned the Prof, abandoning all hope.
There was a pause. The whole strength of the company gazed at me like a family group out of one of Edgar Allan Poe's less cheery yarns, and I felt my joie de vivre dying at the roots.
"I remember Oliver," said Exhibit A. She heaved a sigh. "He was such a pretty child. What a pity! What a pity!"
Tactful, of course, and calculated to put the guest completely at his ease.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“What you want," I said, "is to look out for a chance and save her from drowning."
"I can't swim."
That was Freddie Bullivant all over. A dear old chap in a thousand ways, but no help to a fellow, if you know what I mean.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“I give you my word that, until I started to tramp the place with this child, I never had a notion that it was such a difficult job restoring a son to his parents. How kidnappers ever get caught is a mystery to me. I searched Marvis Bay like a bloodhound, but nobody came forward to claim the infant. You would have thought, from the lack of interest in him, that he was stopping there all by himself in a cottage of his own.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“Reflect, old man! We have been pals for years. Your mother likes me."
"No, she doesn't."
"Well, anyway, we were at school together and you owe me a tenner."
"Oh, well," he said in a resigned sort of voice.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“That's good," I said. "And if you have a nice time this morning on the sands with your spade and bucket, you will come and tell me all about it, won't you? I have so little on my mind just now that it's a treat to hear all about your happy holiday."
Satirical, if you see what I mean. Sarcastic. Almost bitter, as a matter of fact, if you come right down to it.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“Did you ever tread on your partner's dress at a dance - I'm speaking now of the days when women wore dresses long enough to be trodden on - and hear it rip and see her smile at you like an angel and say, "Please don't apologise. It's nothing," and then suddenly meet her clear blue eyes and feel as if you had stepped on the teeth of a rake and had the handle jump up and hit you in the face?”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“Yes; Jimmy Mundy!' she said. 'I am surprised at a man of your stamp having heard of him. There is no music, there are no drunken, dancing men, no shameless, flaunting women at his meetings; so for you they would have no attraction. But for others, less dead in sin, he has his message. He has come to save New York from itself; to force it - in his picturesque phrase - to hit the trail.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“I ordered another. If this was going to be a fish-story, I needed stimulants.
"On the liner going to New York I met a girl." Biffy made a sort of curious gulping noise not unlike a bulldog trying to swallow half a cutlet in a hurry so as to be ready for the other half. "Bertie, old man, I can't describe her. I simply can't describe her."
This was all to the good.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
“Jeeves," I said, "listen attentively. I don't want to give the impression that I consider myself one of those deadly coves who exercise an irresistible fascination over one and all and can't meet a girl without wrecking her peace of mind in the first half-minute. As a matter of fact, it's rather the other way with me, for girls on entering my presence are mostly inclined to give me the raised eyebrow and the twitching upper lip.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Carry on, Jeeves
P.G. Wodehouse
Born place: in Guildford, Surrey, England, The United Kingdom
Born date October 15, 1881
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