he pottered off pigwards

on excessive girl-craziness

2007-07-16T00:21:00.000-04:00

'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

2007-07-16T00:16:00.000-04:00

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

2007-07-16T00:12:00.001-04:00

'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

2007-07-15T23:58:00.000-04:00

'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

2006-07-06T20:33:00.000-04:00

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

2006-07-06T20:30:00.000-04:00

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

2006-07-06T20:25:00.000-04:00

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

2006-07-06T20:16:00.000-04:00

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

2006-07-06T20:09:00.000-04:00

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

2006-07-06T19:58:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-29T23:01:00.000-04:00

“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

2006-05-29T22:59:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-29T22:57:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-29T22:53:00.000-04:00

“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

2006-05-29T22:46:00.000-04:00

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

2006-04-28T12:20:00.000-04:00

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

2006-04-25T17:08:00.000-04:00

"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

2006-04-22T08:57:00.000-04:00

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

2006-04-20T10:59:00.000-04:00

I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled. [the code of the woosters]

on the printed name

2006-02-07T11:41:00.000-05:00

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

2006-02-07T11:39:00.000-05:00

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

2006-02-07T11:37:00.000-05:00

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

2006-02-07T11:35:00.000-05:00

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

2006-02-07T11:33:00.000-05:00

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

2006-02-07T11:31:00.000-05:00

'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

2005-09-17T19:55:00.000-04:00

'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

2005-02-19T22:42:00.000-05:00

'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

2005-02-19T22:40:00.000-05:00

'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

2005-02-19T22:38:00.000-05:00

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

2005-02-19T22:37:00.001-05:00

'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

2005-02-19T22:35:00.000-05:00

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

2005-02-19T22:33:00.000-05:00

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

2005-02-19T22:27:00.000-05:00

'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

2005-02-19T22:24:00.000-05:00

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

2005-02-19T22:23:00.000-05:00

In response to Lord Ickenham's whoop of welcome he stared dully, like a dying halibut. [uncle dynamite]

on perfect breeding

2005-02-19T22:22:00.000-05:00

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

2005-02-19T22:21:00.000-05:00

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

2005-02-19T22:20:00.000-05:00

'My dear, you look like Helen of Troy after a good facial.' [uncle dynamite]

on budge street, chelsea

2005-02-19T22:18:00.000-05:00

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

2005-02-19T22:16:00.000-05:00

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

2005-02-19T22:15:00.000-05:00

'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

2005-02-19T22:14:00.000-05:00

'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

2005-02-19T13:16:00.000-05:00

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

2005-02-19T13:08:00.000-05:00

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

2005-01-22T16:16:00.000-05:00

'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

2005-01-22T16:12:00.000-05:00

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

2005-01-22T16:09:00.000-05:00

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

2005-01-13T17:22:00.000-05:00

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

2005-01-13T17:18:00.000-05:00

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

2005-01-13T17:15:00.000-05:00

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]

on exhaustive tests

2005-01-13T16:46:00.000-05:00

'You may bring me a brandy-and-soda. Not a large one. A couple of bathtubsful will be enough.'
'Very Good, Mr James.'
'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 the hopelessly american

2005-01-13T16:42:00.000-05:00

She was thinking how hopelessly American Mr Pett was; how baggy his clothes looked; what absurdly shaped shoes he wore; how appalling his hat was; how little hair he had; and how deplorably he lacked all those graces of repose, culture, physical beauty, refinement, dignity and mental alertness which raise men above the level of the common cockroach. [piccadilly jim]

on that unmistakable look

2005-01-13T16:40:00.000-05:00

He wore the unmistakable lok of a man about to be present at a row between women, and only a wet cat in a strange back yard bears itself with less jauntiness than a man faced by such a prospect. [piccadilly jim]

on the baseball enthusiast

2005-01-13T16:28:00.000-05:00

Poets have dealt feelingly with the emotions of practically every variety except one. They have sung of Ruth, of Israel in bondage, of slaves pining for their native Africa, and of the miner's dream of home. But the sorrows of the baseball enthusiast, compelled by fate to live three thousand mils away from the Polo Grounds, have been neglected in song. [piccadilly jim]

on mrs pett

2005-01-13T16:25:00.000-05:00

She was a large woman, with a fine figure and bold and compelling eyes, and her personality crashed disturbingly into the quiet atmosphere of the room. [piccadilly jim]

on typewriters

2005-01-13T15:28:00.000-05:00

He loved to hear the sound of a typewriter; it made home so like the office. [piccadilly jim]

on a muttered oath

2005-01-13T15:21:00.000-05:00

There was a look of exasperation on his usually patient face, and a muttered oath, picked up no doubt on the godless Stock Exchange, escaped his lips.
'Darn it!' [piccadilly jim]

on an honorable man

2005-01-13T15:18:00.000-05:00

'Good?' said Ann with a slight shiver.
'Always the soul of honour,' said Lord Hoddesdon solemnly.
Ann shivered again. Clarence Dumphrey had been the soul of honour. She had often caught him at it. [big money]

on the printed word

2005-01-13T13:16:00.000-05:00

There is about the printed word a peculiar quality which often causes it to exercise a rather disquieting effect on the human mind. It chills. It was only after seeing that announcement set forth in cold type that Ann had come to a full realization of the extremem importance of the step she was about to take and the extremem slightness of her acquaintance with the man with whom she was going to take it. [big money]

on correct methods

2005-01-12T21:05:00.000-05:00

There are two schools of thought concerning the correct method of dealing with small boys who throw stones at their elders and betters in the public street. Some say they should be kicked, others that they should be smacked on the head. Lord Hoddesdon, no bigot, did both. [big money]

on an dinner interruption

2005-01-12T20:35:00.000-05:00

Another young man, this time without spectacles, charged breezily into the the table, rocking it to its foundations. 'Frightfully sorry,' he said. ' There's an awful storm going on out here. Heaven help the poor sailors.' He paused to scoop up a portion of chicken salad, and went out of their lives for ever. [big money]

on paris

2005-01-12T20:24:00.000-05:00

I can't stand Paris. I hate the place. Full of people talking French, which is a thing I bar. It always seems to me so affected. [big money]

on pleasing faces

2005-01-12T17:20:00.000-05:00

'What do you know about him? Coming right down to it, how do you know he's worthy of you?'
'He must be with a face like that.'
'Statistics show that fifty perfect of murderers and other criminals have pleasing faces. You can't go by the face.' [big money]

on a london stroll

2004-12-26T20:50:00.000-05:00

It was his practice, when walking through London, to look hopefully about him on the chance of exciting things happening. Nothing of the slightest interest had ever happened yet, and he had sometimes felt discouraged. But Bond Street restored his optimism. This, he felt, was a spot where anything might occur at any moment.
Here if anywhere, he said to himself, might beautiful women in slinky clothes sidle up to a man and slip into his hand the long envelope containing the Naval Treaty stolen that morning from a worried Foreign Office, mistaking him - on the strength of the carnation in his buttonhole - for Flash Alec, their accomplice. [big money]

on an old nurse

2004-12-26T20:43:00.000-05:00

Mrs. Wisdom was plump and comfortable. She gazed at Berry with stolid affection, like a cow inspecting a turnip. To her, he was still the infant he had been when they had first met. Her manner towards him was always that of wise Age assisting helpless Youth through a perplexing world. [big money]

on bruising hearts

2004-12-26T20:39:00.000-05:00

A girl cannot go about the place for a month and a half with a manner as enchanting as the wand of a siren without bruising a heart or two. [big money]

on sub-editors

2004-12-26T20:31:00.000-05:00

Sub-editors get that way in London. After a few years in Fleet Street, they become temperamentally incapable of seeing any difference between a lot of infants tootling on trombones and a man and a maid starting out hand in hand on the long trail together. If you want to excite a sub-editor, you must be a Mystery Fiend and slay six with hatchet. [big money]

on objectional happenings

2004-12-26T20:25:00.000-05:00

If there was one thing he disliked more than another in a world full of objectional happenings, it was having his office staff get telephone calls on his personal wire. And when these calls had to do with the texture of their underclothing, the iron entered pretty deeply into his soul. [big money]

on dreadful circumstances

2004-12-26T20:20:00.000-05:00

If the prophet Job had entered the room at that moment, T. Paterson Frisby would have shaken his hand and said, 'Old man, I know just how you must have felt.' [big money]

on what i'm looking for

2004-12-26T20:17:00.000-05:00

What I'm looking for is one of those men you read about in books who meet a girl for the first time and gaze into her eyes and cry "My Mate!" and fold her in their arms. And I shan't care if he's a stevedore and hasn't a penny in the world. [big money]

on a childhood acquaintance

2004-12-26T20:15:00.000-05:00

I don't see how you can expect a girl to get warm and confused about someobdy she's seen grow up from a sticky-faced kid in a Lord Fauntleroy suit. I want to meet somone different. I want romance. There must be romance somewhere in the world. [big money]

on the perfect man

2004-12-26T20:06:00.000-05:00

She is so appallingly romantic. The ordinary young man isn't good enough for her, it seems. Oh dear no! I asked her the other day what she did want, and she said something like a mixture of Gene Tunney and T. E. Lawrence and Lindbergh would do if he looked like Ronald Coleman. [big money]

on women and money

2004-12-26T20:04:00.000-05:00

'Women,' commented the Biscuit, 'ought never to be allowed cheque-books. I've often said so. Mugs, every one of them.' [big money]

on a writer's prose

2004-12-26T18:08:00.000-05:00

A writer's prose may come from the heart, but it is seldom that he does not need to polish, to touch up, to heighten the colour. [big money]

on a sneaking butler

2004-12-22T14:14:00.000-05:00

I am unable to state, therefore, whether it was ten minutes later or more like twenty when I emerged from a profound reverie to discover that Jeeves was in my midst. I had had no inkling of his approach, but then one very often hasn't. He has a way of suddenly materializing at one's side like one of those Indian blokes who shoot their astral bodies to and fro, going into thin air in Rangoon and re-assembling the parts in Calcutta. I think it's done with mirrors. [jeeves in the morning]

on repetition

2004-12-22T14:12:00.000-05:00

When your whole faith in human nature has been shattered, you are entitled to repeat yourself a bit. [jeeves in the morning]

on a lovers' quarrel

2004-12-21T11:23:00.000-05:00

When a girl uses six derogatory adjectives in her attempt to paint the portrait of the loved one, it means something. One may indicate a merely temporary tiff. Six is big stuff. [jeeves in the morning]

on proper procedure

2004-12-20T14:43:00.000-05:00

Every impulse urged me to give the little snurge six of the best with a bludgeon. But you can't very well slosh a child who has just lost his eyebrows. Besides, I hadn't a bludgeon. [jeeves in the morning]

on aunt agatha

2004-12-20T14:38:00.000-05:00

Aunt Agatha is like an elephant - not so much to look at, for in appearance she resembles more a well-bred vulture, but because she never forgets. [jeeves in the morning]

on seeing an old friend

2004-12-17T14:50:00.000-05:00

It having been some considerable time since we had foregathered, there ensued, of course, a certain period of leaping about and fraternizing. [jeeves in the morning]

on an approaching marriage

2004-12-17T14:39:00.000-05:00

Too often on such occasions one feels...that the kindly thing to do would be to seize the prospective bridgegroom's trousers in one's teeth and draw him back from danger, as faithful dogs do to their masters on the edge of precipices on dark nights. [jeeves in the morning]

on money

2004-12-02T17:59:00.000-05:00

It was an expression of rapture, of joy, of almost beautific happiness - the look, in short, of a man who sees his way clear to laying his hands on five hundred pounds. [summer lighting]

There is about the mention of any substantial sum of money something that seems to exercise a quickening effect on the human intelligence. [summer lightning]

on waiting for love

2004-12-02T17:57:00.000-05:00

The longer I wait, the more fascinating it will give him time to become. [summer lightning]

on butlers

2004-12-02T11:20:00.000-05:00

A butler, felt the Hon. Galahad, is a bulter, and a startled fawn is a startled fawn. He disliked the blend of the two in a single body. [summer lightning]

on human nature

2004-12-02T11:15:00.000-05:00

The evidence was damning, and yet Lord Emsworth found himself once more prey to doubt. Of the blackness of Sir Gregory Parsole-Parsole's soul he had, of course, been long aware. But could the man actually be capable of the Crime of the Century? A fellow landowner? A Justice of the Peace? A man who grew pumpkins? A Baronet? [summer lightning]

Do you suppose a fellow changes his nature just because a cousin of his dies and he comes into a Baronetcy? [summer lightning]

on emily

2004-11-30T13:41:00.000-05:00

Realizing the futility of words, Emily decided on action. [money for nothing]

When people trod on Emily, she expected them immediately to fuss over her, and the same procedure seemed to be in order when they hit her on the nose with doors. Waiting expectantly, therefore, for Colonel Wyvern to do the square thing, she was stunned to find that he apparently had no intention of even apologizing. He was brushing past without a word, and all the woman in Emily rose in revolt against such boorishness. [money for nothing]

on moustaches

2004-11-30T13:35:00.000-05:00

Non-Army men may grow moustaches and brood over them and be fond and proud of them, but to obtain a waxed moustache in the deepest and holiest sense of the word you have to be a Sergeant-Major. [money for nothing]

He rose from his seat with easy grace, and his hand, falling from the salute, came to rust on the western section of his waxed moustache. [money for nothing]

And it couldn't be done, anyway. It woud involve shaving off my moustache, to which I am greatly attached. When a man has neither chick nor child, he gets very fond of a moustache. [uncle dynamite]

on fashion

2004-11-30T13:26:00.000-05:00

You don't need a hat to tax a man with stealing a pig. [summer lightning]

on friendship

2004-11-30T13:14:00.000-05:00

There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature. [strychnine in the soup]