Quotes from The Inimitable Jeeves

“We Woosters do not lightly forget. At least, we do - some things - appointments, and people's birthdays, and letters to post, and all that - but not an absolutely bally insult like the above.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“Warm-hearted! I should think he has to wear asbestos vests!”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“I suppose he must have taken about a nine or something in hats. Shows what a rotten thing it is to let your brain develop too much.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“As a rule, you see, I'm not lugged into Family Rows. On the occasions when Aunt is calling Aunt like mastodons bellowing across premieval swamps and Uncle James's letter about Cousin Mabel's peculiar behaviour is being shot round the family circle ('Please read this carefully and send it on Jane') the clan has a tendency to ignore me. It's one of the advantages I get from being a bachelor - and, according to my nearest and dearest, practically a half-witted bachelor at that.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“How does he look, Jeeves?"
"Sir?"
"What does Mr Bassington-Bassington look like?"
"It is hardly my place, sir, to criticize the facial peculiarities of your friends.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“When Cynthia smiles," said young Bingo, "the skies are blue; the world takes on a roseate hue; birds in the garden trill and sing, and Joy is king of everything, when Cynthia smiles." He coughed, changing gears. "When Cynthia frowns - "
"What the devil are you talking about?"
"I'm reading you my poem. The one I wrote to Cynthia last night. I'll go on, shall I?"
"No!"
"No?"
"No. I haven't had my tea.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“I shoved on a dressing-gown, and flew downstairs like a mighty, rushing wind.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“What are the chances of a cobra biting Harold, Jeeves?"
"Slight, I should imagine, sir. And in such an event, knowing the boy as intimately as I do, my anxiety would be entirely for the snake.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“I've found, as a general rule of life, that the things you think are going to be the scaliest nearly always turn out not so bad after all.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“Jeeves, Mr Little is in love with that female."
"So I gathered, sir. She was slapping him in the passage."
I clutched my brow.
"Slapping him?"
"Yes, sir. Roguishly.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“The boy is of an outspoken disposition, and had made an opprobrious remark respecting my personal appearance."
"What did he say about your appearance?"
"I have forgotten, sir," said Jeeves, with a touch of austerity. "But it was opprobrious.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“Hear that, Eustace? He wishes we were staying a good long time."
"I expect it will seem a good long time," said Eustace, philosophically.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“What with one thing and another, I can't remember ever having been chirpier than at about this period in my career. Everything seemed to be going right. On three separate occasions horses on which I'd invested a sizeable amount won by lengths instead of sitting down to rest in the middle of the race, as horses usually do when I've got money on them. ~ Bertram "Bertie" Wooster - The Inimitable Jeeves”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“I wonder the food didn't turn to ashes in our mouths! Eggs! Muffins! Sardines! All wrung from the bleeding lips of the starving poor!"
"Oh, I say! What a beastly idea!"...
Jeeves came in to clear away, and found me sitting among the ruins. It was all very well for Comrade Butt to knock the food, but he had pretty well finished the ham; and if you had shoved the remainder of the jam into the bleeding lips of the starving poor it would hardly have made them sticky.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“Just as you say, sir. There is a letter on the tray, sir."
"By Jove, Jeeves, that was practically potry. Rhymed, did you notice?”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“You must meet old Rowbotham, Bertie. A delightful chap. Wants to massacre the bourgeoisie, sack Park Lane and disembowel the hereditary aristocracy. Well, nothing could be fairer than that, what?”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“He seemed to be doing his best to marry into a family of pronounced loonies, and how the deuce he thought he was going to support even a mentally afflicted wife on nothing a year beat me. Old Bittlesham was bound to knock off his allowance if he did anything of the sort and, with a fellow like young Bingo, if you knocked off his allowance, you might just as well hit him on the head with an axe and make a clean job of it.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“Good Lord, Jeeves! Is there anything you don’t know?’ ‘I couldn’t say, sir.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“I say, you don't know how I could raise fifty quite somehow, do you?"
"Why don't you work?"
"Work?" said young Bingo, surprised. "What, me? No, I shall have to think of some way.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“There's something about evening service in a country church that makes a fellow feel drowsy and peaceful. Sort of end-of-a-perfect-day feeling. Old Heppenstall was up in the pulpit, and he has a kind of regular, bleating delivery that assists thought. They had left the door open, and the air was full of a mixed scent of trees and honeysuckle and mildew and villagers' Sunday clothes. As far as the eye could reach, you could see farmers propped up in restful attitudes, breathing heavily; and the children in the congregation who had fidgeted during the earlier part of the proceedings were now lying back in a surfeited sort of coma. The last rays of the setting sun shone through the stained-glass windows, birds were twittering in the trees, the women's dresses crackled gently in the stillness. Peaceful. That's what I'm driving at. I felt peaceful. Everybody felt peaceful.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“I am familiar with the name Bassington-Bassington, sir. There are three branches of the Bassington-Bassington family - the Shropshire Bassington-Bassingtons, the Hampshire Bassington-Bassingtons, and the Kent Bassington-Bassingtons."
"England seems pretty well stocked up with Bassington-Bassingtons."
"Tolerably so, sir."
"No chance of a sudden shortage, I mean, what?"
"Presumably not, sir."
"And what sort of a specimen is this one?"
"I could not say, sir, on such short acquaintance."
"Will you give me a sporting two to one, Jeeves, judging from what you have seen of him, that this chappie is not a blighter or an excrescence?"
"No, sir. I should not care to venture such liberal odds.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“By the way, I may have misled you by using the word 'tea'. None of your wafer slices of bread-and-butter. We're good trencher-men, we of the Revolution. What we shall require will be something on the order of scrambled eggs, muffins, jam, ham, cake and sardines. Expect us at five sharp."
"But, I say, I'm not quite sure - "
"Yes, you are. Silly ass, don't you see that this is going to do you a bit of good when the Revolution breaks loose? When you see old Rowbotham sprinting up Piccadilly with a dripping knife in each hand, you'll be jolly thankful to be able to remind him that he once ate your tea and shrimps.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“I appear inadvertently to have caused much trouble, sir."
"Jeeves!" I said.
"Sir?"
"How much money is there on the dressing-table?"
"In addition to the ten-pound note which you instructed me to take, sir, there are two five-pound notes, three one-pounds, a ten-shillings, two half-crowns, a florin, four shillings, a sixpence, and a halfpenny, sir."
"Collar it all," I said. "You've earned it.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“He sallied forth, having told all those bally lies with the clear, blue, pop-eyed gaze of a young child.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“There you see two typical members of the class which has down-trodden the poor for centuries. Idlers! Non-producers! 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!"
He seemed to me to be verging on the personal, and I didn't think a lot of it. Old Bittlesham, on the other hand, was pleased and amused.
"A great gift of expression these fellows have," he chuckled. "Very trenchant."
"And the fat one!" proceeded the chappie. "Don't miss him. Do you know who that is? That's Lord Bittlesham! One of the worst. What has he ever done except eat four square meals a day? His god is his belly, and he sacrifices burnt-offerings to it. If you opened that man now you would find enough lunch to support ten working-class families for a week."
"You know, that's rather well put," I said, but the old boy didn't seem to see it. He had turned a brightish magenta and was bubbling like a kettle on the boil.
"Come away, Mr Wooster," he said. "I am the last man to oppose the right of free speech, but I refuse to listen to this vulgar abuse any longer."
We legged it with quiet dignity, the chappie pursuing us with his foul innuendoes to the last. Dashed embarrassing.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“Good works?"
"About the village, sir. Reading to the bedridden - chatting with the sick - that sort of thing, sir. We can but trust that good results will ensue."
"Yes, I suppose so," I said doubtfully. "But, by gosh, if I were a sick man I'd hate to have a looney like young Bingo coming and gibbering at my bedside.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“In love with me. Don't be absurd."
"My dear old thing, you don't know young Bingo. He can fall in love with anybody."
"Thank you!"
"Oh, I didn't mean it that way, you know. I don't wonder at his taking to you. Why, I was in love with you myself once."
"Once? Ah! And all that remains now are the cold ashes? This isn't once of your tactful evenings, Bertie."
"Well, my dear sweet thing, dash it all, considering that you gave me the bird and nearly laughed yourself into a permanent state of hiccoughs when I asked you - "
"Oh, I'm not reproaching you. No doubt there were faults on both sides. He's very good-looking, isn't he?"
"Good-looking? Bingo? Bingo good-looking? No, I say, come now, really!"
"I mean, compared with some people," said Cynthia.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“I've been through a bad time, Bertie, these last weeks. The sun ceased to shine - "
"That's curious. We've had gorgeous weather in London."
"The birds ceased to sing."
"What birds?"
"What the devil does it matter what birds?" said young BIngo, with some asperity. "Any birds. The birds round about here. You don't expect me to specify them by their pet names, do you? I tell you, Bertie, it hit me hard at first, very hard."
"What hit you?" I simply couldn't follow the blighter.
"Charlotte's calculated callousness.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“I love that girl, Bertie," he went on, when he'd finished coughing.
"Yes. Nice girl, of course."
He eyed me with deep loathing.
"Don't speak of her in that horrible casual way. She's an angel. An angel!”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

“moment blighted Harold discovered that training meant knocking off pastry, taking exercise, and keeping away from the cigarettes, he was all against it, and it was only by unceasing vigilance that we managed to keep him in any shape at all.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from The Inimitable Jeeves

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