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P.G. Wodehouse Quotes
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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
P.G. Wodehouse: 302 quotes16 likes

P.G. Wodehouse Quotes

“She cried in a voice that hit me between the eyebrows and went out at the back of my head.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“A slight throbbing about the temples told me that this discussion had reached saturation point.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“A young man with dark circles under his eyes was propping himself up against a penny-in-the-slot machine. An undertaker, passing at that moment, would have looked at this young man sharply, scenting business. So would a buzzard.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Luck of the Bodkins

The Luck of the Bodkins (1935)

“Before my eyes he wilted like a wet sock.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954)

“I don't know if you have ever seen a tiger of the jungle drawing a deep breath preparatory to doing a swan dive and landing with both the feet on the backbone of one of the minor fauna. Probably not, nor, as a matter of fact, have I.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954)

“Routine is the death to heroism.”

P.G. Wodehouse

The Man Upstairs (1914)

“At five minutes to eleven on the morning named he was at the station, a false beard and spectacles shielding his identity from the public eye. If you had asked him he would have said that he was a Scotch business man. As a matter of fact, he looked far more like a motor-car coming through a haystack.”

P.G. Wodehouse

The Man with Two Left Feet (1917)

“I had not failed to interpret the significance of that dark frown, that bitten lip and those flashing eyes, nor the way the willowy figure had quivered, indicating, unless she had caught a chill, that she was as sore as a sunburned neck.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Much Obliged, Jeeves

Much Obliged, Jeeves (1971)

“At this moment, the laurel bush, which had hitherto not spoken, said "Psst!"”

P.G. Wodehouse book Summer Lightning

Summer Lightning (1929)

“There are some things a chappie's mind absolutely refuses to picture, and Aunt Julia singing 'Rumpty-tiddley-umpty-ay' is one of them.”

P.G. Wodehouse

The Man with Two Left Feet (1917)

“Are you sure?’ I said that sure was just what I wasn’t anything but.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Jeeves in the Offing

Jeeves in the Offing (1960)

“We do not tell old friends beneath our roof-tree that they are an offence to the eyesight.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“His was a life which lacked, perhaps, the sublimer emotions which raised Man to the level of the gods, but it was undeniably an extremely happy one. He never experienced the thrill of ambition fulfilled, but, on the other hand, he never knew the agony of ambition frustrated. His name, when he died, would not live for ever in England's annals; he was spared the pain of worrying about this by the fact that he had no desire to live for ever in England's annals. He was possibly as nearly contented a human being can be in this century of alarms and excursions.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Something Fresh

Something Fresh (1915)

“In one second, without any previous training or upbringing, he had become the wettest man in Worcestershire.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Very Good, Jeeves

Very Good, Jeeves (1930)

“Stiffy was one of those girls who enjoy in equal quantities the gall of an army mule and the calm insouciance of a fish on a slab of ice.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Code of the Woosters

The Code of the Woosters (1938)

“She had a beaky nose, tight thin lips, and her eye could have been used for splitting logs in the teak forests of Borneo.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Much Obliged, Jeeves

Much Obliged, Jeeves (1971)

“And a moment later there was a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and the relative had crossed the threshold at fifty m. p. h. under her own steam.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“Bingo swayed like a jelly in a high wind.”

P.G. Wodehouse

Eggs, Beans and Crumpets (1940)

“He had been looking like a dead fish. He now looked like a deader fish, one of last year's, cast up on some lonely beach and left there at the mercy of the wind and tides.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“For some moments after silence had come like a poultice to heal the blows of sound, all that occupied his mind was the thought of what pests the gentler sex were when they got hold of a telephone. The instrument seemed to go to their heads like a drug. Connie Keeble, for instance. Nice sensible woman when you talked to her face to face, never tried to collar the conversation and all that, but the moment she got on the telephone, it was gab, gab, gab, and all about nothing.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Pigs Have Wings

Pigs Have Wings (1952)

“And, anyway, no matter how much you may behave like the deaf adder of Scripture which, as you are doubtless aware, the more one piped, the less it danced, or words to that effect, I shall carry on as planned.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“He committed mayhem upon his person. He did everything to him that a man can do who is hampered with boxing gloves.”

P.G. Wodehouse

Ukridge (1924)

“Directing an austere look at Tubby’s receding back, she spoke in a cold crisp voice which sounded in the drowsy stillness like ice tinkling in a pitcher.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Summer Moonshine

Summer Moonshine (1938)

“Dedication: To my daughter Leonora without whose never-failing sympathy and encouragement this book would have been finished in half the time.”

P.G. Wodehouse

The Heart of a Goof (1926)

“And shove him into a dungeon with dripping walls and see to it that he is well gnawed by rats.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves

Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (1963)

“It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.”

P.G. Wodehouse

Blandings Castle (1935)

“Don't you like this hat?‘
‘No, sir.‘
‘Well, I do,‘ I replied rather cleverly, and went out with it tilted just that merest shade over the left eye which makes all the difference.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves

Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (1963)

“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. On the other hand, it may not be all right. And pretty silly a chap would feel, no doubt, if, having split the atom, he suddenly found the house going up in smoke and himself torn limb from limb.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“And as he, too, seemed disinclined for chit-chat, we stood for some moments like a couple of Trappist monks who have run into each other at the dog races.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954)

“Beginning with a critique of my own limbs, which she said, justly enough, were nothing to write home about, this girl went on to dissect my manners, morals, intellect, general physique, and method of eating asparagus with such acerbity that by the time she had finished the best you could say of Bertram was that, so far as was known, he had never actually committed murder or set fire to an orphan asylum.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“As a sleuth you are poor. You couldn’t detect a bass-drum in a telephone-booth.”

P.G. Wodehouse

The Man with Two Left Feet (1917)

“His whole aspect was that of a man who has unexpectedly been struck by lightning.”

P.G. Wodehouse

Eggs, Beans and Crumpets (1940)

“The cosy glow which had been enveloping the Duke became shot through by a sudden chill. It was as if he had been luxuriating in a warm shower-bath, and some hidden hand had turned on the cold tap.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Uncle Fred in the Springtime

Uncle Fred in the Springtime (1939)

“I don’t say I’ve got much of a soul, but, such as it is, I’m perfectly satisfied with the little chap. I don’t want people fooling about with it. ‘Leave it alone,’ I say. ‘Don’t touch it. I like it the way it is.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Joy in the Morning

Joy in the Morning (1947)

“Attila the Hun might have broken off his engagement to her, but nobody except Attila the Hun, and he only on one of his best mornings.”

P.G. Wodehouse book A Few Quick Ones

A Few Quick Ones (1959)

“I once got engaged to his daughter Honoria, a ghastly dynamic exhibit who read Nietzsche and had a laugh like waves breaking on a stern and rockbound coast.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Inimitable Jeeves

The Inimitable Jeeves (1923)

“Breakfast had been prepared by the kitchen maid, an indifferent performer who had used the scorched earth policy on the bacon again.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Spring Fever

Spring Fever (1948)

“Oofy, thinking of the tenner he had given Freddie, writhed like an electric fan.”

P.G. Wodehouse book A Few Quick Ones

A Few Quick Ones (1959)

“It began to be borne in upon Lord Ickenham that in planning to appeal to the Duke’s better feelings he had omitted to take into his calculations the fact that he might not have any.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Uncle Fred in the Springtime

Uncle Fred in the Springtime (1939)

“Dark hair fell in a sweep over his forehead. He looked like a man who would write vers libre, as indeed he did.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Girl on the Boat

The Girl on the Boat (1922)

“Henry glanced hastily at the mirror. Yes, he did look rather old. He must have overdone some of the lines on his forehead. He looked something between a youngish centenarian and a nonagenarian who had seen a good deal of trouble.”

P.G. Wodehouse

The Man with Two Left Feet (1917)

“The village of Market Blandings is one of those sleepy hamlets which modern progress has failed to touch… The church is Norman, and the intelligence of the majority of the natives palaeozoic.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Something Fresh

Something Fresh (1915)

“She loves this newt-nuzzling blister.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“[of a character in "The Man Who Gave Up Smoking" who is suffering from a hangover] … the noise of the cat stamping about in the passage outside caused him exquisite discomfort.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Mr Mulliner Speaking

Mr Mulliner Speaking (1929)

“I can't stand Paris. I hate the place. Full of people talking French, which is a thing I bar. It always seems to me so affected.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Big Money

Big Money (1931)

“His eyes were rolling in their sockets, and his face had taken on the colour and expression of a devout tomato. I could see he loved like a thousand bricks.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Joy in the Morning

Joy in the Morning (1947)

“I want to know what the devil you mean by keeping coming into my private apartment, taking up space which I require for other purposes and interrupting me when I am chatting with my personal friends. Really one gets about as much privacy in this house as a strip-tease dancer.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Code of the Woosters

The Code of the Woosters (1938)

“She laughed - a solo effort. Nothing in the prevailing circumstances made me feel like turning it into a duet.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Joy in the Morning

Joy in the Morning (1947)

“He trusted neither of them as far as he could spit, and he was a poor spitter, lacking both distance and control.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Adventures of Sally

The Adventures of Sally (1922)

“Stinko, is he?’
'Not perhaps stinko, but certainly effervescent.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves

Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (1963)