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...

I had one of those ideas I do sometimes get, though admittedly a chump of the premier class.

How anybody can compose a story by word of mouth face to face with a bored-looking secretary with a notebook is more than I can imagine. Yet many authors think nothing of saying, ‘Ready, Miss...

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...

No novelists any good except me. Sovietski — yah! Nastikoff — bah! I spit me of zem all. No novelists anywhere any good except me. P. G. Wodehouse and Tolstoi not bad. Not good, but...

One of the poets, whose name I cannot recall, has a passage, which I am unable at the moment to remember, in one of his works, which for the time being has slipped my mind,...

Unseen in the background, Fate was quietly slipping lead into the boxing-glove.

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

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.

This is the age of the specialist, and years ago Rollo had settled on his career. Even as a boy, hardly capable of connected thought, he had been convinced that his speciality, the one thing...

I flung open the door. I got a momentary flash of about a hundred and fifteen cats of all sizes and colours scrapping in the middle of the room, and then they all shot past...

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.

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...

It has been well said that an author who expects results from a first novel is in a position similar to that of a man who drops a rose petal down the Grand Canyon of...

You see, the catch about portrait painting—I’ve looked into the thing a bit— is that you can’t startpainting portraits till people come along and ask you to, andthey won’t come and ask you to until...

One of the Georges – I forget which – once said that a certain number of hours´ sleep each night – I cannot recall at the moment how many – made a man something which...

You remind me of an old cat I once had. Whenever he killed a mouse he would bring it into the drawing-room and lay it affectionately at my feet. I would reject the corpse with...

Mike nodded. A sombre nod. The nod Napoleon might have given if somebody had met him in 1812 and said, “So, you’re back from Moscow, eh?

Didn’t Frankenstein get married?””Did he?” said Eggy. “I don’t know. I never met him. Harrow man, I expect.

The snag in this business of falling in love, aged relative, is that the parties of the first part so often get mixed up with the wrong parties of the second part, robbed of their...

Had his brain been constructed of silk, he would have been hard put to it to find sufficient material to make a canary a pair of cami-knickers.

A man’s subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and...

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

…there occurred to me the simple epitaph which, when I am no more, I intend to have inscribed on my tombstone. It was this:”He was a man who acted from the best motives. There is...

The voice of Love seemed to call to me, but it was a wrong number.

[T]he 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, “What are my big scenes?” and then get...

This is peculiarly an age in which each of us may, if he do but search diligently, find the literature suited to his mental powers.

One of the Georges,” said Psmith, “I forget which, once said that a certain number of hours’ sleep a day–I cannot recall for the moment how many–made a man something, which for the time being...

Why do dachshunds wear their ears inside out?

I am not always good and noble. I am the hero of this story, but I have my off moments.

At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies.

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.

[On writing Jeeves and Wooster stories]:You tell yourself that you can take Jeeves stories or leave them alone, that one more can’t possibly hurt you, because you know you can pull up whenever you feel...

He had the look of one who had drunk the cup of life and found a dead beetle at the bottom.

Bicky rocked, like a jelly in a high wind.

Why do you want a political career? Have you ever been in the House of Commons and taken a good look at the inmates? As weird a gaggle of freaks and sub-humans as was ever...

Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of love, sir. It merely mummifies its corpse.

My Aunt Dahlia, who runs a woman’s paper called Milady’s Boudoir, had recently backed me into a corner and made me promise to write her a few words for her “Husbands and Brothers” page on...

And she’s got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity the girl who marries you will need.

Man’s inability to get out of bed in the morning is a curious thing. One may reason with oneself clearly and forcibly without the slightest effect. One knows that delay means inconvenience. Perhaps it may...

Has anybody ever seen a drama critic in the daytime? Of course not. They come out after dark, up to no good.

You would not enjoy Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound.

Boyhood, like measles, is one of those complaints which a man should catch young and have done with, for when it comes in middle life it is apt to be serious.

The cells smell is a great feature of French prisons. Ours in No.44 was one of those fine broad-shouldered up and coming young smells, which stand on both feet and look the world in the...

Girls do go for the finely-chiselled. And apart from his looks, he’s and artist, and there’s something about artists that seems to act on the other sex like catnip on cats.

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.

Water!’ cried Marie.’Vinegar!’ recommended the bell-boy.’Eu-de-Cologne!’ said Bill.’Pepper!’ said Lord Tidmouth.Mary had another suggestion.’Give her air!’So had the bell-boy.’Slap her hands!’Lord Tidmouth went further.’Sit on her head!’ he advised.

Employers are like horses — they require management.

He had just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wanted to eat, but certainly no more.

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,...