Top 500 P. G. Wodehouse Quotes (2024 Update)
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451. “He had never measured a footprint in his life, and what he did not know about bloodstains would have filled a library.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

452. “The brains of members of the Press departments of motion-picture studios resemble soup at a cheap restaurant. It is wiser not to stir them.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

453. “You can’t tell me if there are any special subjects to avoid when talking to him, can you?’ ‘Special subjects?’ ‘Well, you know how it is with a stranger. You say it’s a fine day, and he goes all white and tense, because you’ve reminded him that it was on a fine day that his wife eloped with the chauffeur.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

454. “Experience, dearly bought in the days of his residence at the University, had taught him that when the Law gripped you with its talons the only thing to do was to give a false name, say nothing and hope for the best.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

455. “This man’s brother I was telling you about,” said Spennie, “says there’s only one rhyme in the English language to ‘burglar’, and that’s ‘gurgler’. Unless you count ‘pergola’, he says – –.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

456. “She has heard what a loony you are, and she seems to think it may be hereditary. “I hope you are not like your uncle,” she keeps saying, with a sort of brooding look in her eye.’ ‘You must have misunderstood her. “I hope you are like your uncle,” she probably said. Or “Do try, darling, to be more like your uncle.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

457. “We Woosters can bite the bullet.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

458. “A detective is only human. The less of a detective, the more human he is. Henry was not much of a detective, and his human.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

459. “I may as well tell you, here and now, that if you are going about the place thinking things pretty, you will never make a modern poet. Be poignant, man, be poignant!”

— P. G. Wodehouse

460. “This woman always made Freddie feel as if he were being disemboweled by some clumsy amateur.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

461. “We all shook hands, and the policeman, having retrieved a piece of chewing-gum from the underside of a chair, where he had parked it against a rainy day, went off into a corner and began to contemplate the infinite.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

462. “On the cue ‘five aunts’ I had given at the knees a trifle, for the thought of being confronted with such a solid gaggle of aunts, even if those of another, was an unnerving one. Reminding myself that in this life it is not aunts that matter, but the courage that one brings to them, I pulled myself together.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

463. “You see, the catch about portrait-painting – I’ve looked into the thing a bit – is that you can’t start painting portraits till people come along and ask you to, and they won’t come and ask you to until you’ve painted a lot first.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

464. “When it comes to letting the world in on the secrets of his heart, he has about as much shrinking reticence as a steam calliope.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

465. “I believe, if you played your cards right, you could still marry her, Pongo.’ ‘Aren’t you overlooking the trifling fact that I happen to be engaged to Hermione?’ ‘Slide out of it.’ ‘Ha!’ ‘It is what your best friends would advise. You are a moody, introspective young man, all too prone to look on the dark side of things. I shall never forget you that day at the dog races. Sombre is the only word to describe your attitude as the cop’s fingers closed on your coat collar. You.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

466. “The test of a great golfer is his ability to recover from a bad start.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

467. “Ukridge was the sort of man who asks you to dinner, borrows money from you to pay the bill, and winds up the evening by embroiling you in a fight with a cabman.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

468. “Tut!′ I said. ‘What did you say?’ ‘I said “Tut!“’ ‘Say it once again, and I’ll biff you where you stand. I’ve enough to endure without being tutted at.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

469. “She did drive me in the Park the other day. I thought it rather a hopeful.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

470. “He was always inclined to read a fictitious sombreness into things when the shadows began to creep over the world and it was still too early for a cocktail.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

471. “I wonder if you have noticed a rather rummy thing about it – viz. that it is everywhere. You can’t get away from it. Love, I mean. Wherever you go, there it is, buzzing along in every class of life. Quite remarkable.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

472. “Life in the country, with its lack of intellectual stimulus, has caused his natural feebleness of mind to reach a stage which borders closely on insanity. His.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

473. “Lady Kimbuck gave tongue. She was Lord Evenwood’s sister. She spent a very happy widowhood interfering in the affairs of the various branches of her family.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

474. “I did not rush in with the vim I would have displayed a year or so earlier, before Life had made me the grim, suspicious man I am to-day:.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

475. “Strangers always look big on the football field.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

476. “I knew a chap who bumped his leg, and it turned black and had to be cut off at the knee.’ ‘You do seem to mix with the most extraordinary people.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

477. “It was some time before this happened, for he had got a very fine hand indeed. I suppose it wasn’t often that the boys of Market Snodsbury Grammar School came across a man public-spirited enough to call their head master a silly ass, and they showed their appreciation in no uncertain manner. Gussie may have been one over the eight, but as far as the majority of those present were concerned he was sitting on top of the world.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

478. “I felt most awfully braced. I felt as if the clouds had rolled away and all was as it used to be. I felt like one of those chappies in the novels who calls off the fight with his wife in the last chapter and decides to forget and forgive. I felt I wanted to do all sorts of other things to show Jeeves that I appreciated him.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

479. “One of the rooted convictions of each member of the human race is that he or she is able without difficulty to open a door which has baffled their fellows.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

480. “I could make a poet out of far less promising material. I could make a poet out of two sticks and a piece of orange peel.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

481. “About two hours afterwards Gethryn discovered a suitable retort, but, coming to the conclusion that better late than never does not apply to repartees, refrained from speaking it.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

482. “She could not have gazed at him with a more rapturous intensity if she had been a small child and he a saucer of ice cream.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

483. “It may work, Jeeves. It is, at least, worth trying. I shall now leave you, to prepare myself for the ordeal before me with silent meditation.’ ‘Your tea will be here in a moment, sir.’ ‘No, Jeeves. This is no time for tea. I must concentrate.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

484. “Jeeves’ eyes had taken on the look of cautious reserve which you see in those of parrots, when offered half a banana by a stranger of whose bona fides they are not convinced.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

485. “You can’t expect an empty aunt to beam like a full aunt.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

486. “Tricky devils, these novelists. The ink gets into their heads.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

487. “Much has been written on the subject of bed-books. The general consensus of opinion is that a gentle, slow-moving story makes the best opiate.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

488. “We Woosters freeze like the dickens when we seek sympathy and meet with cold reserve. “Nothing further Jeeves”, I said with quiet dignity.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

489. “The High Street was full of farmers, cows, and other animals, the majority of the former well on the road to intoxication. It is, of course, extremely painful to see a man in such a condition, but when such a person in endeavouring to count a perpetually moving drove of pigs, the onlooker’s pain is sensibly diminished.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

490. “Bertie,’ he said, ‘I want your advice.’ ‘Carry on.’ ‘At least, not your advice, because that wouldn’t be much good to anybody. I mean, you’re a pretty consummate old ass, aren’t you? Not that I want to hurt your feelings, of course.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

491. “Excuse me, I must go and putt.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

492. “I’m a bit short on brain myself; the old bean would appear to have been constructed more for ornament than for use, don’t you know...”

— P. G. Wodehouse

493. “If it is bad to be all dressed up and no place to go, it is almost worse to be full of talk and to have no one to talk it to.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

494. “I mean, if you’re asking a fellow to come out of a room so that you can dismember him with a carving knife, it’s absurd to tack a ‘sir’ on to every sentence. The two things don’t go together.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

495. “That is the peculiarity of London. There is a sort of cold unfriendliness about it. A city like New York makes the new arrival feel at home in half an hour; but London is a specialist in what Psmith called in his letter the Distant Stare. You have to buy London’s good will.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

496. “The Primrose Way.” National problems had ceased to interest the citizens. Local problems left them cold. Their minds were riveted to the exclusion of all else on the problem of how to secure seats.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

497. “Captain Bradbury’s right eyebrow had now become so closely entangled with his left that there seemed no hope of ever extricating it without the aid of powerful machinery.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

498. “Hands up!’ said Mr Cootes with the uncouth curtness of one who has not had the advantages of a refined home and a nice upbringing.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

499. “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.”

— P. G. Wodehouse

500. “I knew a man once who stammered,” said Jimmy. “He used to chew dog biscuit while he was speaking. It cured him. Besides being nutritious.”

— P. G. Wodehouse