P.G. Wodehouse

"I am strongly of the opinion that, after the age of twenty-one, a man ought not to be out of bed and awake at four in the morning. The hour breeds thought. At twenty-one, life being all future, it may be examined with impunity. But, at thirty, having become an uncomfortable mixture of future and past, it is a thing to be looked at only when the sun is high and the world full of warmth and optimism."

"There was something sort of bleak about her tone, rather as if she had swallowed an east wind. This I took to be due to the fact that she probably hadn't breakfasted. It's only after a bit of breakfast that I'm able to regard the world with that sunny cheeriness which makes a fellow the universal favourite. I'm never much of a lad till I've engulfed an egg or two and a beaker of coffee."I suppose you haven't breakfasted"I have not yet breakfasted."Won't you have an egg or something? Or a sausage or something? Or something"No, thank you."She spoke as if she belonged to an anti-sausage league or a league for the suppression of eggs. There was a bit of silence."

"I’m not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy it’s Shakespeare—or, if not, it’s some equally brainy lad—who says that it’s always just when a chappie is feeling particularly top-hole, and more than usually braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with a bit of lead piping."

"The ideal adventurer needs... the quality of not being content to mind his own affairs..."

"Every author really wants to have letters printed in the paper. Unable to make the grade, he drops down a rung of the ladder and writes novels."

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

"Lord Emsworth belonged to the people-like-to-be-left-alone-to-amuse-themselves-when-they-come-to-a-place school of hosts"

"I could still see that Pauline was one of the most beautiful girls I had ever met, but of the ancient fire which had caused me to bung my heart at her feet that night at the Plaza there remained not a trace. Analysing this, if analyzing is the word I want, I came to the conclusion that this changed outlook was due to the fact that she was so dashed dynamic. Unquestionably an eyeful, Pauline Stoker had the grave defect of being one of those girls who want you to come and swim a mile before breakfast and rout you out when you are trying to snatch a wink of sleep after lunch for a merry five sets of tennis."

"I always advise people never to give advice."

"...with each new book of mine I have always the feeling that this time I have picked a lemon in the garden of literature."

"There is no pathos more bitter than that of parting from someone we have never met."

"The Duke of Dunstable had one-way pockets. He would walk ten miles in the snow to chisel an orphan out of tuppence."

"I read the paragraph again. A peculiar feeling it gave me. I don't know if you have ever experienced the sensation of seeing the announcement of the engagement of a pal of yours to a girl whom you were only saved from marrying yourself by the skin of your teeth. It induces a sort of -- well, it's difficult to describe it exactly; but I should imagine a fellow would feel much the same if he happened to be strolling through the jungle with a boyhood chum and met a tigress or a jaguar, or what not, and managed to shin up a tree and looked down and saw the friend of his youth vanishing into the undergrowth in the animal's slavering jaws. A sort of profound, prayerful relief, if you know what I mean, blended at the same time with a pang of pity. What I'm driving at is that, thankful as I was that I hadn't had to marry Honoria myself, I was sorry to see a real good chap like old Biffy copping it. I sucked down a spot of tea and began brooding over the business."

"She ignored my observation. This generally happens with me. Show me a woman, I sometimes say, and I will show you someone who is going to ignore my observations."

"No sir," said Mr Molloy. "I'm mighty sorry I can't meet you in any way, but the fact is I'm all fixed up in Oil. Oil's my dish. I began in Oil and I'll end up in Oil. I wouldn't be happy outside of Oil."Oh" said Mr Carmody, regarding this Human Sardine with as little open hostility as he could manage on the spur of the moment."

"Oh, is that my report, father' said Mike, with a sort of sickly interest, much as a dog about to be washed might evince in his"

"Mac had many admirable qualities, but not tact. He was the sort of man who would have tried to cheer Napoleon up by talking about the Winter Sports at Moscow."

"Mr Wisdom,' said the girl who had led him into the presence.'Ah,' said Howard Saxby, and there was a pause of perhaps three minutes, during which his needles clicked busily. 'Wisdom, did she say''Yes. I wrote "Cocktail Time"''You couldn't have done better,' said Mr Saxby cordially. 'How's your wife, Mr Wisdom'Cosmo said he had no wife.'Surely'"I'm a bachelor.'Then Wordsworth was wrong. He said you were married to immortal verse. Excuse me a moment,' murmured Mr Saxby, applying himself to the sock again. 'I'm just turning the heel. Do you knit''No.''Sleep does. It knits the ravelled sleave of care.'(After a period of engrossed knitting, Cosmo coughs loudly to draw attention to his presence.)'Goodness, you made me jump!' he (Saxby) said. 'Who are you''My name, as I have already told you, is Wisdom''How did you get in' asked Mr Saxby with a show of interest.'I was shown in.''And stayed in. I see, Tennyson was right. Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers. Take a chair.''I have.''Take another,' said Mr Saxby hospitably."

"Great pals we've always been. In fact there was a time when I had an idea I was in love with Cynthia. However, it blew over. A dashed pretty and lively and attractive girl, mind you, but full of ideals and all that. I may be wronging her, but I have an idea that she's the sort of girl who would want a fellow to carve out a career and what not. I know I've heard her speak favourably of Napoleon. So what with one thing and another the jolly old frenzy sort of petered out, and now we're just pals. I think she's a topper, and she thinks me next door to a looney, so everything's nice and matey."

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