on excessive girl-craziness
'Is Mr Little in trouble, sir?'
'Well, you might call it that. He's in love. For about the fifty-third time. I ask you, Jeeves, as man to man, did you ever see such a chap?'
'Mr Little is certainly warm-hearted, sir.'
'Warm-hearted! I should think he has to wear asbestos vests.' [the inimitable jeeves]
on living with roomates
After this, things became a bit strained at the flat owing to Claude and Eustace not being on speaking terms. I'm all for a certain chumminess in the home, and it was waring to have to live with two fellows who wouldn't admit the other one was on the map at all. [the inimitable jeeves]
on loosing badly
'I never bet on horse-racing. It is against my principles. I am told that the animal failed to win the contest.'
'Failed to win! Why, he was so far behind that he nearly came in first in the next race.' [the inimitable jeeves]
on passing the patriotic buck
'Of course, I didn't invent the country,' said George. 'That was Columbus. But I shall be delighted to consider any improvements you may suggest and lay them before the proper authorities.' [the inimitable jeeves]
on death by a mob
Death to the assassin! I fear nothing could save you from the mob, Comrade Parker. I seem to see them meditatively plucking you limb from limb. "She loves me!" Off comes an arm. "She loves me not!" A leg joins the little heap on the ground. That is how it would be. [psmith journalist]
on psmith's appearance
Go and see the animals, and remember me kindly to the Peruvian Llama, whom friends sometimes told me I resemble in appearance. [psmith journalist]
on grammar
A voice from the room called up to Psmith.
'Say!'
'You have our ear,' said Psmith.
'What's that?'
'I said you had our ear.'
'Are youse stiffs comin' down off out of dat roof?'
'Would you mind repeating that remark?'
'Are youse guys goin' to quit off out of dat roof?'
'Your grammar is perfectly beastly,' said Psmith severely.
'Hey!'
'Well?'
[psmith journalist]
on name calling
From this point forward the march of events were rapid
Mr. Coston, rising, asked Mr. Dawson who he thought, Mr. Dawson, was.
Mr. Dawson, extinguishing his cigarette and placing it behind his ear, replied that he was the fellow who could bite his, Mr. Coston, head off.
Mr. Coston said: 'Huh?'
Mr. Dawson said: 'Sure.'
Mr. Coston called Mr. Dawson a pie-faced rubber-necked four-flusher.
Mr. Dawson called Mr. Coston a coon.
And that was where the trouble really started.
[psmith journalist]
on the subway
Conversation on the Subway is impossible. The ingenious gentleman who constructed it started with the object of making it noisy. Not ordinarily noisy, like a ton of coal falling on to a sheet of tin, but really noisy. So they fashioned the pillars of thin steel, and the sleepers of thin wood, and loosened all the nuts, and now a Subway train in motion suggests a prolonged dynamite explosion with the voice of some great cataract. [psmith journalist]
on hearing
Comrade Windsor was known to the Indians as Boola-Na-Ba-Gosh, which, as you doubtless know, signifies Big-Chief-Who-Can-Hear-A-Fly-Clear-Its-Throat. I too can hear as well as the next man. [psmith journalist]
on snails
“No I am a lawyer.”
Amelia Bingham uttered a pleased cry.
“Then you can tell me if the woman next door has any right to throw her snails into my garden.”
“None whatever. Legally, snails are wild animals.”
“What ought I to do?”
“Throw them back.”
[bachelors anonymous]
on cyril pemberton
His was a face that could never have launched anything like a thousand ships, and something – possibly an elephant – appeared to have sat on it and squashed it. No one broad-minded will allow himself to be prejudiced against a fellow man because the latter has a squashed face, but this squashed face had in addition a grim menacing look, such as is so often seen on the faces of actors playing bit parts in gagster films, and – possibly inadvertently – he gave the impression that it would take very little to give him offense. He was carrying in his hand a bunch of roses. [bachelors anonymous]
on a difficult situation
It is never agreeable for a man who is engaged to one girl and has just proposed to another to find himself in the company of both of them. [bachelors anonymous]
on haircuts
“That’s what he’s doing.”
“And getting his hair trimmed into the bargain.”
“You consider that bad?”
“Don’t you?”
“I must say it struck me as sinister.”
“Nothing could be more so.”
[bachelors anonymous]
on the mysterious midget
I wonder some mystery writer doesn't make it the setting for a thriller. This stall I'm sitting in. The perfect place for finding a corpse underneath. A small corpse, of course. A midget, in fact, and one that had stunted its growth by cigarette smoking in boyhood. His size enabled him to hide in the villain's homburg hat and he overheard the villain plotting, but unfortunately he sneezed and was discovered and bumped off. [bachelors anonymous]
on the psychological brain
I wish I had a brain like yours," said Lord Ickenham. "What an amazing thing. I suppose you could walk down a line of people, giving each of them a quick glance, and separate the sheep from the goats like shelling peas. 'Loony... not loony... this one wants watching... This one's all right... Keep an eye on this chap. Don't let him get near the bread knife...' Extraordinary. [uncle fred in the spring time]
on stealth
"His attention was arrested by a sudden sound from within."
"What sort of sound?"
"The sound of stealthy footsteps, sir."
"Someone stepping stealthily, as it were."
"Precisely, sir."
[the code of the woosters]
on fashion
Old Bassett's apparel was in keeping with his lack of inches. Prismatic is the only word for those frightful tweeds and, oddly enough, the spectacle of them had the effect of steadying my nerves. They gave me the the feeling that nothing mattered. [the code of the woosters]
on attitude
I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled. [the code of the woosters]
on the printed name
Nothing is so capable of diversity as the emotion we feel on seeing our name unexpectedly in print. We may soar to the heights or we may sink to the depths. Jimmy did the latter. [piccadilly jim]
on ann's philosophy
Ann was quite certain now that she did not like this young m an nearly so well as she had supposed. It is trying for a strong-minded, clear-thinking girl to have her philosophy described as a grouch. [piccadilly jim]
on ann
She loved adventure and based her estimate of any member of the opposite sex largely on his capacity for it. She moved in a set, when at home, which was more polite and adventurous, and had frequently found the atmosphere enervating. [piccadilly jim]
on dislike of jimmy
The thought that a girl could be as pretty as this one and yet dislike him so much was one of the saddest things Jimmy had ever come across. it was like on of those Things Which make Me Weep in This Great City so dear to the hearts of the sob-writers of his late newspaper. [piccadilly jim]
on an empty stomach
This was not a matter, he perceived, to be decided recklessly, on the spur of a sudden impulse. Above all, it was not a matter to be decided before lunch. An empty stomach breeds imagination. [piccadilly jim]
on the hangover
'And now leave me, Bayliss, for I would be alone. I have to make a series of difficult and exhaustive tests to ascertain whether I am still alive.' [piccadilly jim]
on excessive tea-drinking
'Some misguided person lured poor old Buffy into one of those temperance lectures illustrated with coloured slides, and the called on me next day ashen, poor old chap - ashen. "Gally," he said. "What would you say the procedure was when a fellow wants to buy tea? How would a fellow set about it?" "Tea?" I said. "What do you want tea for?" "To drink," said Buffy. "Pull yourself together, dear boy," I said. "You're talking wildly. You can't drink tea. Have a brandy-and-soda." "No more alcohol for me," said Buffy. "Look what it does to the common earthworm." "But you're not a common earthworm," I said, putting my finger on the flaw in his argument right away. "I dashed soon shall be if I go on drinking alcohol," said Buffy. Well, I begged him with tears in my eyes not to do anything rash, but I couldn't move him. He ordered in ten pounds of the muck and was dead inside the year.' [summer lightning]
on saying much
'I have much to say.''So have I much to say.''Well, if it comes to a duet, I'll bet I can talk louder and quicker than you, and I am willing to back this opinion with notes, cash, or lima beans.' [uncle dynamite]
on bill oakshott
'Of all my circle he is the one I would choose first to be at my side in the event of unpleasantness with an alligator. And whilte it may be argued, and with perfect justice, that the part which alligators play in the average normal married life is not a large one, it is no bad thing for a girl to have a husband capable of putting them in their place.' [uncle dynamite]
on a revelation
A girl who has been looking on the man of her choice as a pure white soul and suddenly discovers that he is about as pure and white as a stevedore's undervest does not say 'Oh, yes? Well, I must be off.' She sits rigid. She gasps. She waits for more. [uncle dynamite]
on pongo's singing
'I have heard Pongo sing on several occasions at our village concert, and it is impossible to mistake the symptoms. He sticks his chin up and throws his head back and lets it go in the direction of the ceiling at an angle of about forty-five. And very unpleasant it is, especially when the song is "Oh, My Dolores, Queen of the Eastern Sea," as too often happens.' [uncle dynamite]
on lady bostock
The dinner hour was approaching. In her room, Lady Bostock had finished dressing and was regarding herself in the mirror, wishing, not for the first time, that she looked less like a horse. It was not that she had anything specific against horses; she just wished she did not look like one. [uncle dynamite]
on times of disturbance
In times of spiritual disturbance there is nothing like a brisk mystery thriller for taking the mind off its anxieties. [uncle dynamite]
on pongo's childhood
'As for Pongo, the idea of him being old enough to contemplate marriage fills me with a perpetual astonishment. To me, he still wears sailor suits.''He must have looked sweet in a sailor suit.''No, he didn't He looked foul. like a ballet girl in a nautical musical comedy.' [uncle dynamite]
on his look
On his face was that hard, keen look which comes into the faces of policemen when they intend to do their duty pitilessly and crush a criminal like a snake beneath the heel. It was the look which Constable Potter's face wore when...he called at a house to serve a summons on somebody for moving pigs without a permit. [uncle dynamite]
on bill's response
In response to Lord Ickenham's whoop of welcome he stared dully, like a dying halibut. [uncle dynamite]
on perfect breeding
At moments, indeed, only her perfect breeding had restrained her from beating him over the head with the sock which she was knitting for the deserving poor. [uncle dynamite]
on sally's smile
A dazzling simile flashed out on Sally's face. The waiter, who was bringing chicken en casserole, caught it head-on and nearly dropped the dish. [uncle dynamite]
on how to compliment a lady
'My dear, you look like Helen of Troy after a good facial.' [uncle dynamite]
on budge street, chelsea
Budge Street, Chelsea, in the heart of London's artistic quarter, is, like so many streets in the hearts of artisitic quarters, dark, dirty, dingy, and depressing. Its residents would appear to be great readers and fond of fruit, for tattered nespapers can always be found fluttering about its sidewalks and old banana skins, cores of apples, plum stones, and squashed strawberries lying in large quantities in its gutters. Its cats are stringy, hard-boiled cats, who look as if they were contemptlating, or had just finished perpetrating, a series of murders of the more brutal type. [uncle dynamite]
on hermione bostock
Hermione was a girl whom it did not do to cross. She expected people to carry out her wishes, and those who knew what was good for them invariably did so. [uncle dynamite]
on the ideal wife
'The advice I give to every young man starting out to see a life partner is to find a girl whom he can tickle. Can you see yourself tickling Hermione Bostock? She would draw herself up to her full height and say "Sir!"' [uncle dynamite]
on american girls
'She was always trying to boss me.''Girls do. Especially American girls. I know, because I married one. It's part of their charm.' [uncle dynamite]
on publicity
Publicity was a thing from which Lord Ickenham himself had never been averse. He frankly enjoyed it. If Silver Bands and Boy Scouts had come to welcome him at a station, he would have leaped to meet them with a whoop and a holler, and would have been out taking bows almost before the train had stopped. But it was plain that this young friend of his was differently constituted, and his heart was moved by his distress. [uncle dynomite]
on seeing her again
In which event, what would the procedure be? Would he, as before, just gape and schuffle his feet? Or would he, fortified by three months in bracing Brazil, at last be able to shake off his distressing timidity and bring himself to reveal a silent passion which had been functioning uninterruptedly for some nine years? [uncle dynomite]
on a home
'Yes, I have a home in Pasadena. In Carmel, too, and one in New York and another in Florida and another up in Maine.'
'Making five in all?'
'Six. I was forgetting the one in Oregon.'
'Six?' The Captain seemed thoughtful. 'Oh, well' he said, 'it's nice to have a roof over your head, of course.' [the return of jeeves]
on captain biggar
He had keen blue eyes, a very red face, a round head inclined to baldness and one of those small, bristly moustaches which abound in such profusion in the outposts of Empire. Indeed, these sprout in so widespread a way on the upper lips of those who bear the white man's burden that it is a tenable theory that the latter hold some sort of patent rights. [the return of jeeves]Here, you would have said, was a man who man a time had looked his rhinocerous in the eye and made it wilt. [the return of jeeves]The whole point about a hunter like Captain Bigger, if you face is squarely is that he hunts. And, this being so, you expect him to stay put in and around his chosen hunting grounds. Meet him in Kenya or Malaya or Borneo or India, and you feel no surprise. ...But when you see him in the coffee-room of an English country inn, thousands of miles from his natural habitat, you may be excused for harboring a momentary suspicion that this is not the man in the flesh but rather his wraith or phantasm looking in, as wraiths and phantasms will, to pass the itme of day. [the return of jeeves]
on american ladies
It seemed incredible to the waiter that there should be anyone in England who could ask such a question, but he had already gathered that the lady was an American lady, and American ladies, he knew, are often ignorant of the fundamental facts of life. He had once met one who had wanted to know what a football pool was. [the return of jeeves]
on detective fashion
It was his habit to dress in the height of fashion, for one of his favorite axioms was that a man might be a detective and still look a gentleman, and his appearance as that of the individual usually described as a popular clubman. That is to say, it looked like a floorwalker taking a Sunday stroll. [piccadilly jim]
on a request
In a word, she could hardly have been in less suitable frame of mind to recieve graciously any kind of request from him. She would have suspected ulterior motives if he had asked her the time. [piccadilly jim]
on keen glances
The detective glanced keenly at him as he passed. He made a paractice of glancing keenly at nearly everything. It cost nothing and impressed clients. [piccadilly jim]
