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'Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary,' murmured Psmith. (Earlier usage of the precise words 'Elementary, my dear Watson' has been found in the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.)
P. G. Wodehouse
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‘Don't you like this hat?‘‘No, sir.‘‘Well, I do,‘ I replied rather cleverly, and went out with it tilted just that merest shade over the left eye which makes all the difference.
P. G. Wodehouse
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Directing an austere look at Tubby’s receding back, she spoke in a cold crisp voice which sounded in the drowsy stillness like ice tinkling in a pitcher.
P. G. Wodehouse
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‘Suppose your Aunt Dahlia read in the paper one morning that you were going to be shot at sunrise.’‘I couldn’t be, I’m never up so early.’
P. G. Wodehouse
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I started violently, as if some unseen hand had goosed me.
P. G. Wodehouse
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He was not a man who prattled readily, especially in a foreign tongue. He gave the impression that each word was excavated from his interior by some up-to-date process of mining.
P. G. Wodehouse
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To find a man's true character, play golf with him.
P. G. Wodehouse
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'You can't be a successful Dictator and design women's underclothing.'No, sir.'One or the other. Not both.'Precisely, sir.'
P. G. Wodehouse
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Has anybody ever seen a dramatic critic in the daytime? Of course not. They come out after dark, up to no good.
P. G. Wodehouse
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He was a long, stripy policeman, who flowed out of his uniform at odd spots, as if Nature, setting out to make a constable, had had a good deal of material left over which she had not liked to throw away but hardly seemed able to fit into the general scheme.
P. G. Wodehouse
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It just showed once again that half the world doesn’t know how the other three quarters live.
P. G. Wodehouse
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Hugo?’ ‘Millicent?’ ‘Is that you?’ ‘Yes. Is that you?’ ‘Yes.’ Anything in the nature of misunderstanding was cleared away. It was both of them.
P. G. Wodehouse
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I don't know if you have ever seen a tiger of the jungle drawing a deep breath preparatory to doing a swan dive and landing with both the feet on the backbone of one of the minor fauna. Probably not, nor, as a matter of fact, have I.
P. G. Wodehouse
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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 Arizona and listens for the echo.
P. G. Wodehouse
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This was not Aunt Dahlia, my good and kindly aunt, but my Aunt Agatha, the one who chews broken bottles and kills rats with her teeth.
P. G. Wodehouse
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She’s all for not letting the sun go down without having started something calculated to stagger humanity.
P. G. Wodehouse
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’You must remember, Father,’ said Mavis, in a voice which would have had an Eskimo slapping his ribs and calling for the steam-heat, ‘that this girl was probably very pretty. So many of these New York girls are. That would, of course, explain Frederick's behaviour.’
P. G. Wodehouse
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I laughed derisively. "For goodness' sake, don't start gargling now. This is serious." "I was laughing." "Oh, were you? Well, I'm glad to see you taking it in this merry spirit." "Derisively," I explained.
P. G. Wodehouse
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Nature, when planning this sterling fellow, shoved in a lot more lower jaw than was absolutely necessary and made the eyes a bit too keen and piercing for one who was neither an Empire builder nor a traffic policeman.
P. G. Wodehouse
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I consider that of all the dashed silly, drivelling ideas I ever heard in my puff this is the most blithering and futile. It won't work. Not a chance.
P. G. Wodehouse
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Love is a delicate plant that needs constant tending and nurturing, and this cannot be done by snorting at the adored object like a gas explosion and calling her friends lice.
P. G. Wodehouse
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He resembled a minor prophet who had been hit behind the ear with a stuffed eel-skin.
P. G. Wodehouse
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Lady Glossip: Mr. Wooster, how would you support a wife? Bertie Wooster: Well, I suppose it depends on who's wife it was, a little gentle pressure beneath the elbow while crossing a busy street usually fits the bill.
P. G. Wodehouse
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His whole aspect was that of a man who has unexpectedly been struck by lightning.
P. G. Wodehouse
