P. G. Wodehouse Quotes - Page 5

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• It was a nasty look. It made me feel as if I were something the dog had brought in and intended to bury later on, when he had time.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Dog, Looks, Nasty

  P. G. Wodehouse, David A. Jasen (1997). “Enter Jeeves: 15 Early Stories”, p.43, Courier Corporation

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• I don’t know if you have had the same experience, but the snag I always come up against when I’m telling a story is this dashed difficult problem of where to begin it.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Stories, Problem, Come Up

  P. G. Wodehouse (2015). “Right Ho, Jeeves”, p.3, Booklassic

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• This Vladimir Brusiloff to whom I have referred was the famous Russian novelist. . . . Vladimir specialized in gray studies of hopeless misery, where nothing happened till page three hundred and eighty, when the moujik decided to commit suicide. . . . Cuthbert was an optimist at heart, and it seemed to him that, at the rate at which the inhabitants of that interesting country were murdering one another, the supply of Russian novelists must eventually give out.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Suicide, Country, Heart

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• I believe the only way a writer can keep himself up to the mark is by examining each story quite coldly before he starts writing it and asking himself if it is all right as a story. I mean, once you go saying to yourself, 'This is a pretty weak plot as it stands, but I'm such a hell of a writer that my magic touch will make it okay,' you're sunk. If they aren't in interesting situations, characters can't be major characters, not even if you have the rest of the troop talk their heads off about them.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Believe, Character, Mean

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

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Two, Want, Different

  P. G. Wodehouse (2015). “Right Ho, Jeeves”, p.29, Booklassic

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• 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

  Attitude, Would Be, Obliged

  P. G. Wodehouse (2012). “The Man Upstairs: And Other Stories”, p.152, The Floating Press

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• Rex Stout's narrative and dialogue could not be improved, and he passes the supreme test of being rereadable. I don't know how many times I have reread the Wolfe stories, but plenty. I know exactly what is coming and how it is all going to end, but it doesn't matter. That's writing.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Writing, Stories, Narrative

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• She's one of those soppy girls, riddled from head to foot with whimsy. She holds the view that the stars are God's daisy chain, that rabbits are gnomes in attendance on the Fairy Queen, and that every time a fairy blows its wee nose a baby is born, which, as we know, is not the case. She's a drooper.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Girl, Baby, Stars

  P.G. Wodehouse (1989). “Aunts Omnibus”, Hutchinson

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• ...smoking is just a habit. 'Tolstoy', she said, mentioning someone I hadn't met, 'says that just as much pleasure can be got from twirling the fingers'. My impulse was to tell her Tolstoy was off his onion, but I choked down the heated words. For all I know, the man might be a bosom pal of hers and she might resent criticism of him, however justified.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Men, Smoking, Criticism

  P. G. Wodehouse (1990). “The Cat-Nappers”, HarperCollins

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• He looks much more like a lobster than most lobsters do.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Lobster, Looks

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• Love has had a lot of press-agenting from the oldest times; but there are higher, nobler things than love.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Higher, Presses

  P. G. Wodehouse (2009). “The Clicking of Cuthbert: Easyread Comfort Edition”, p.64, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• I suppose half the time Shakespeare just shoved down anything that came into his head.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Half

  P.G. Wodehouse (2009). “Joy in the Morning: (Jeeves & Wooster)”, p.141, Random House

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• I was writing a story, 'The Artistic Career of Corky,' about two young men, Bertie Wooster and his friend Corky, getting into a lot of trouble, and neither of them had brains enough to get out of the trouble. I thought: Well, how can I get them out? And I thought: Suppose one of them had an omniscient valet?

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Writing, Men, Careers

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• It isn't often that Aunt Dahlia lets her angry passions rise, but when she does, strong men climb trees and pull them up after them.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Strong, Passion, Aunt

  P. G. Wodehouse (2015). “Right Ho, Jeeves”, p.192, Booklassic

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• I know I was writing stories when I was five. I don't know what I did before that. Just loafed I suppose.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Writing, Stories, Five

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• What earthly good is golf? Life is stern and life is earnest. We live in a practical age. All around us we see foreign competition making itself unpleasant. And we spend our time playing golf? What do we get out of it? Is golf any use? That's what I'm asking you. Can you name me a single case where devotion to this pestilential pastime has done a man any practical good?

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Golf, Men, Names

  P. G. Wodehouse (2009). “The Clicking of Cuthbert: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.2, ReadHowYouWant.com

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

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Tea, Want, Hell

  P. G. Wodehouse (1999). “A Wodehouse Bestiary”, p.290, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Routine is the death to heroism.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Death, Heroism, Routine

  "The Man Upstairs". Book by P. G. Wodehouse, 1914.

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• I should think it extremely improbable that anyone ever wrote for money. Naturally, when he has written something, he wants to get as much for it as he can, but that is a very different thing from writing for money.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Writing, Thinking, Different

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• If it were not for quotations, conversations between gentlemen would consist of an endless series of 'what-ho!'s.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Gentleman, Conversation, Endless

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• I turned on the pillow with a little moan, and at this juncture Jeeves entered with the vital oolong. I clutched at it like a drowning man at a straw hat.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Men, Tea, Littles

  P. G. Wodehouse (2010). “Right Ho, Jeeves”, p.53, The Floating Press

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• The only way of really finding out a man's true character is to play golf with him. In no other walk of life does the cloven hoof so quickly display itself.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Character, Golf, Men

  P. G. Wodehouse (2011). “The Clicking of Cuthbert”, p.130, The Floating Press

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• I believe there are two ways of writing novels. One is mine, making a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going right deep down into life and not caring a damn.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Real, Believe, Writing

  P. G. Wodehouse (2000). “Sunset at Blandings”, Penguin Group USA

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• In all crises of human affairs there are two broad courses open to a man. He can stay where he is or he can go elsewhere.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Men, Two, Affair

  P. G. Wodehouse (2011). “Indiscretions of Archie”, p.43, The Floating Press

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• I think the success of every novel - if it's a novel of action - depends on the high spots. The thing to do is to say to yourself, 'Which are my big scenes?' and then get every drop of juice out of them. The principle I always go on in writing a novel is to think of the characters in terms of actors in a play. I say to myself, if a big name were playing this part, and if he found that after a strong first act he had practically nothing to do in the second act, he would walk out. Now, then, can I twist the story so as to give him plenty to do all the way through?

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Strong, Character, Writing

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