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P.G. Wodehouse Quotes

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. Born in Guildford, the third son of a British magistrate based in Hong Kong, Wodehouse spent happy teenage years at Dulwich College, to which he remained devoted all his life. After leaving school, he was employed by a bank but disliked the work and turned to writing in his spare time. His early novels were mostly school stories, but he later switched to comic fiction, creating several regular characters who became familiar to the public over the years. They include the jolly gentleman of leisure Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet Jeeves; the immaculate and loquacious Psmith; Lord Emsworth and the Blandings Castle set; the Oldest Member, with stories about golf; and Mr. Mulliner, with tall tales on subjects ranging from bibulous bishops to megalomaniac movie moguls.

Most of Wodehouse's fiction is set in England, although he spent much of his life in the US and used New York and Hollywood as settings for some of his novels and short stories. He wrote a series of Broadway musical comedies during and after the First World War, together with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, that played an important part in the development of the American musical. He began the 1930s writing for MGM in Hollywood. In a 1931 interview, his naïve revelations of incompetence and extravagance in the studios caused a furore. In the same decade, his literary career reached a new peak.

In 1934 Wodehouse moved to France for tax reasons; in 1940 he was taken prisoner at Le Touquet by the invading Germans and interned for nearly a year. After his release he made six broadcasts from German radio in Berlin to the US, which had not yet entered the war. The talks were comic and apolitical, but his broadcasting over enemy radio prompted anger and strident controversy in Britain, and a threat of prosecution. Wodehouse never returned to England. From 1947 until his death he lived in the US, taking dual British-American citizenship in 1955. He was a prolific writer throughout his life, publishing more than ninety books, forty plays, two hundred short stories and other writings between 1902 and 1974. He died in 1975, at the age of 93, in Southampton, New York.

Wodehouse worked extensively on his books, sometimes having two or more in preparation simultaneously. He would take up to two years to build a plot and write a scenario of about thirty thousand words. After the scenario was complete he would write the story. Early in his career he would produce a novel in about three months, but he slowed in old age to around six months. He used a mixture of Edwardian slang, quotations from and allusions to numerous poets, and several literary techniques to produce a prose style that has been compared to comic poetry and musical comedy. Some critics of Wodehouse have considered his work flippant, but among his fans are former British prime ministers and many of his fellow writers. Wikipedia  

✵ 15. October 1881 – 14. February 1975  •  Other names పి. జి. వుడ్‌హౌస్
P.G. Wodehouse photo

Works

Right Ho, Jeeves
Right Ho, Jeeves
P.G. Wodehouse
The Code of the Woosters
Carry On, Jeeves
Carry On, Jeeves
P.G. Wodehouse
Right Ho, Jeeves
Right Ho, Jeeves
P.G. Wodehouse
The Code of the Woosters
Carry On, Jeeves
Carry On, Jeeves
P.G. Wodehouse
P.G. Wodehouse: 302 quotes16 likes

Famous P.G. Wodehouse Quotes

“And she's got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity the girl who marries you will need.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Adventures of Sally

The Adventures of Sally (1922)
Source: Mostly Sally

“It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.”

P.G. Wodehouse

The Man Upstairs (1914)
Source: The Man Upstairs and Other Stories

“The voice of Love seemed to call to me, but it was a wrong number.”

P.G. Wodehouse

Source: Very Good, Jeeves!

“Red hair, sir, in my opinion, is dangerous.”

P.G. Wodehouse

Source: Very Good, Jeeves!

P.G. Wodehouse: Trending quotes

“You know how it is with some girls. They seem to take the stuffing right out of you. I 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 book Right Ho, Jeeves

Source: Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“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 book Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“I always advise people never to give advice.”

P.G. Wodehouse

P.G. Wodehouse Quotes

“The Right Hon. was a tubby little chap who looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say `When!”

P.G. Wodehouse book Very Good, Jeeves

Very Good, Jeeves (1930)

“And as for Gussie Fink-Nottle, many an experienced undertaker would have been deceived by his appearance and started embalming him on sight.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“What you want, my lad, and what you're going to get are two very
different things.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Source: Right Ho, Jeeves

“"I don't want to seem always to be criticizing your methods of voice production, Jeeves," I said, "but I must inform you that that 'Well, sir' of yours is in many respects fully as unpleasant as your 'Indeed, sir?'”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Like the latter, it seems to be tinged with a definite scepticism. It suggests a lack of faith in my vision. The impression I retain after hearing you shoot it at me a couple of times is that you consider me to be talking through the back of my neck, and that only a feudal sense of what is fitting restrains you from substituting for it the words 'Says you!'"
Source: Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“… there occurred to me the simple epitaph which, when I am no more, I intend to have inscribed on my tombstone. It was this:
"He was a man who acted from the best motives. There is one born every minute.”

P.G. Wodehouse book My Man Jeeves

Source: My Man Jeeves

“If the prophet Job were to walk into the room at this moment, I could sit swapping hard-luck stories with him till bedtime.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“The discovery of a toy duck in the soap dish, presumably the property of some former juvenile visitor, contributed not a little to this new and happier frame of mind. What with one thing and another, I hadn't played with toy ducks in my bath for years, and I found the novel experience most invigorating. For the benefit of those interested, I may mention that if you shove the thing under the surface with the sponge and then let it go, it shoots out of the water in a manner calculated to divert the most careworn. Ten minutes of this and I was enabled to return to the bedchamber much more the old merry Bertram.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“Nature, when planning this sterling fellow, shoved in a lot more lower jaw than was absolutely necessary and made the eyes a bit too keen and piercing for one who was neither an Empire builder nor a traffic policeman.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“One of the first lessons life teaches us is that on these occasions of back-chat between the delicately-nurtured a man should retire into the offing, curl up in a ball, and imitate the prudent tactics of the opossum, which, when danger is in the air, pretends to be dead, frequently going to the length of hanging out crêpe and instructing its friends to stand round and say what a pity it all is.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Very Good, Jeeves

Very Good, Jeeves (1930)

“'There are moments, Jeeves, when one asks oneself, "Do trousers matter?"'
‘The mood will pass, sir.’”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Code of the Woosters

Source: The Code of the Woosters (1938)

“At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Uneasy Money

The Adventures of Sally (1922)
Source: Uneasy Money

“I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Code of the Woosters

Source: The Code of the Woosters (1938)

“What ho!" I said.
"What ho!" said Motty.
"What ho! What ho!"
"What ho! What ho! What ho!"
After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.”

P.G. Wodehouse book My Man Jeeves

Source: My Man Jeeves

“I'm not absolutely certain of the facts, but I rather fancy it's Shakespeare who says that it's always just when a fellow is feeling particularly braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with the bit of lead piping.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest

Source: Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest

“A melancholy-looking man, he had the appearance of one who has searched for the leak in life's gas-pipe with a lighted candle.”

P.G. Wodehouse

Variant: He was a Frenchman, a melancholy-looking man. His aspect was that of one who has been looking for the leak in a gas pipe with a lighted candle.
Source: The Man Upstairs and Other Stories

“If there is one thing I dislike, it is the man who tries to air his grievances when I wish to air mine.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Love Among the Chickens

Source: Love Among the Chickens

“Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing-glove.”

P.G. Wodehouse

Very Good, Jeeves (1930)
Source: Very Good, Jeeves!

“Mike nodded. A sombre nod. The nod Napoleon might have given if somebody had met him in 1812 and said, "So, you're back from Moscow, eh?”

P.G. Wodehouse

Source: Mike and Psmith

“I am not always good and noble. I am the hero of this story, but I have my off moments.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Love Among the Chickens

Source: Love Among the Chickens

“The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Adventures of Sally

Source: The Adventures of Sally (1922)

“Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of love, sir. It merely mummifies its corpse.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Small Bachelor

Source: The Small Bachelor

“If he had a mind, there was something on it.”

P.G. Wodehouse

“I just sit at my typewriter and curse a bit.”

P.G. Wodehouse

“As we grow older and realize more clearly the limitations of human happiness, we come to see that the only real and abiding pleasure in life is to give pleasure to other people.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Something Fresh

Source: Something Fresh

“She looked away. Her attitude seemed to suggest that she had finished with him, and would be obliged if somebody would come and sweep him up.”

P.G. Wodehouse

“It is true of course, that I have a will of iron, but it can be switched off if the circumstances seem to demand it.”

P.G. Wodehouse

Source: Jeeves in the Morning

“What's the use of a great city having temptations if fellows don't yield to them?”

P.G. Wodehouse book Carry On, Jeeves

Source: Carry on, Jeeves

“It is no use telling me there are bad aunts and good aunts. At the core, they are all alike. Sooner or later, out pops the cloven hoof.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Code of the Woosters

The Code of the Woosters (1938)

“Chumps always make the best husbands. When you marry, Sally, grab a chump. Tap his head first, and if it rings solid, don't hesitate. All the unhappy marriages come from husbands having brains. What good are brains to a man? They only unsettle him.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Doctor Sally

Source: Doctor Sally

“Hell, it is well known, has no fury like a woman who wants her tea and can't get it.”

P.G. Wodehouse

Source: Very Good, Jeeves!

“Love is a delicate plant that needs constant tending and nurturing, and this cannot be done by snorting at the adored object like a gas explosion and calling her friends lice.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit

Source: Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit

“She fitted into my biggest armchair as if it had been built round her by someone who knew they were wearing armchairs tight about the hips that season.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Carry On, Jeeves

Very Good, Jeeves (1930)
Source: Carry on, Jeeves

“It was one of the dullest speeches I ever heard. The Agee woman told us for three quarters of an hour how she came to write her beastly book, when a simple apology was all that was required.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Girl in Blue

Source: The Girl in Blue (1970)

“He felt like a man who, chasing rainbows, has had one of them suddenly turn and bite him in the leg.”

P.G. Wodehouse

Eggs, Beans and Crumpets (1940)

“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 book The Inimitable Jeeves

Source: The Inimitable Jeeves

“A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Adventures of Sally

Source: The Adventures of Sally (1922)

“Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French. One of the things which Gertrude Butterwick had impressed on Monty Bodkin when he left for his holiday on the Riviera was that he must be sure to practise his French, and Gertrude’s word was law. So now, though he knew that it was going to make his nose tickle, he said:
‘Er, garçon.’
‘M’sieur?’
‘Er, garçon, esker-vous avez un spot de l’encre et une piece de papier—note papier, vous savez—et une envelope et une plume.’
The strain was too great. Monty relapsed into his native tongue.
‘I want to write a letter,’ he said. And having, like all lovers, rather a tendency to share his romance with the world, he would probably have added ‘to the sweetest girl on earth’, had not the waiter already bounded off like a retriever, to return a few moments later with the fixings.
‘V’la, sir! Zere you are, sir,’ said the waiter. He was engaged to a girl in Paris who had told him that when on the Riviera he must be sure to practise his English. ‘Eenk—pin—pipper—enveloppe—and a liddle bit of bloddin-pipper.’
‘Oh, merci,’ said Monty, well pleased at this efficiency. ‘Thanks. Right-ho.’
‘Right-ho, m’sieur,’ said the waiter.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Luck of the Bodkins

Source: The Luck of the Bodkins (1935)

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