Pelham Grenville Wodehouse citations (302 citations)

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.”

Help us translate this quote

P.G. Wodehouse livre 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.”

Help us translate this quote

P.G. Wodehouse livre 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.”

Help us translate this quote

P.G. Wodehouse livre 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.”

Help us translate this quote

P.G. Wodehouse livre 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.”

Help us translate this quote

P.G. Wodehouse livre Very Good, Jeeves

Very Good, Jeeves (1930)

“There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature.”

Help us translate this quote

P.G. Wodehouse

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

Help us translate this quote

P.G. Wodehouse

Source: Very Good, Jeeves!

“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.”

Help us translate this quote

P.G. Wodehouse

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

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

Help us translate this quote

P.G. Wodehouse livre The Code of the Woosters

Source: The Code of the Woosters (1938)

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

Help us translate this quote

P.G. Wodehouse

Source: Very Good, Jeeves!

“He had the look of one who had drunk the cup of life and found a dead beetle at the bottom.”

Help us translate this quote

P.G. Wodehouse

“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.”

Help us translate this quote

P.G. Wodehouse livre Uneasy Money

The Adventures of Sally (1922)
Source: Uneasy Money

“Everything in life that’s any fun, as somebody wisely observed, is either immoral, illegal or fattening.”

Help us translate this quote

P.G. Wodehouse

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

Help us translate this quote

P.G. Wodehouse livre 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.”

Help us translate this quote

P.G. Wodehouse livre 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.”

Help us translate this quote

P.G. Wodehouse livre 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.”

Help us translate this quote

P.G. Wodehouse

Variante: 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.”

Help us translate this quote

P.G. Wodehouse livre Love Among the Chickens

Source: Love Among the Chickens

“I know I was writing stories when I was five. I don’t remember what I did before that. Just loafed, I suppose.”

Help us translate this quote

P.G. Wodehouse

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

Help us translate this quote

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?”