Quotes By Author: P.G. Wodehouse

“The awful part of the writing game is that you can never be sure the stuff is any good.”

“She was, in short, melted by his distress, as so often happens with the female sex. Poets have frequently commented on this. You are probably familiar with the one who said, “Oh, woman in our hours of ease tum tumty tiddly something please, when something something something brow, a something something something thou.”

“…there was practically one handwriting common to the whole school when it came to writing lines. It resembled the movements of a fly that had fallen into an ink-pot, and subsequently taken a little brisk exercise on a sheet of foolscap by way of restoring the circulation.”

“It has been well said that an author who expects results from a first novel is in a position similar to that of a man who drops a rose petal down the Grand Canyon of Arizona and listens for the echo.”

“From my earliest years I had always wanted to be a writer. It was not that I had any particular message for humanity. I am still plugging away and not the ghost of one so far, so it begins to look as though, unless I suddenly hit mid-season form in my eighties, humanity will remain a message short.”

“I flung open the door. I got a momentary flash of about a hundred and fifteen cats of all sizes and colours scrapping in the middle of the room, and then they all shot past me with a rush and out of the front door; and all that was left of the mobscene was the head of a whacking big fish, lying on the carpet and staring up at me in a rather austere sort of way, as if it wanted a written explanation and apology.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“The true philosopher is a man who says “All right,” and goes to sleep in his armchair.”

“It was one of those cases where you approve the broad, general principle of an idea but can’t help being in a bit of a twitter at the prospect of putting it into practical effect. I explained this to Jeeves, and he said much the same thing had bothered Hamlet.”

“You would not enjoy Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound.”

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

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

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