Antidote for melancholy...
The following are excerpts from PG Wodehouse's writings.
Never has it happened that I have read his books and not laughed and felt better... so here is a post that is intended to serve as a bookmark for me.
"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 increase the misery of a miserable hour."
"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.''
"He had just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wanted to eat, but certainly no more."
"I'm not absolutely certain of the facts, but I rather fancy it's Shakespeare who says that it's always just when a fellow is feeling particularly braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with the bit of lead piping."
"Everything in life that’s any fun, as somebody wisely observed, is either immoral, illegal or fattening."
''I always advise people never to give advice."
"A melancholy-looking man, he had the appearance of someone who had searched for the leak in life's gas pipe with a lighted candle."
"You would not enjoy Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound."
"Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoy's Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city's reservoir, he turns to the cupboards, only to find the vodka bottle empty."
"If he had a mind, there was something on it."
"It was one of those parties where you cough twice before you speak and then decide not to say it after all."
"He had the look of one who had drunk the cup of life and found a dead beetle at the bottom."
"A certain critic -- for such men, I regret to say, do exist -- made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained 'all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.' He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have out-generalled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy."
"There is only one cure for grey hair. It was invented by a Frenchman. It is called the guillotine."
"...it has been well said that it is precisely these moments when we are feeling that ours is the world and everything that's in it that Fate selects for sneaking up on us with the rock in the stocking."
"Chumps always make the best husbands. When you marry, Sally, grab a chump. Tap his head first, and if it rings solid, don't hesitate. All the unhappy marriages come from husbands having brains. What good are brains to a man? They only unsettle him."
"Oh, Jeeves,' I said; 'about that check suit.'
Yes, sir?'
Is it really a frost?'
A trifle too bizarre, sir, in my opinion.'
But lots of fellows have asked me who my tailor is.'
Doubtless in order to avoid him, sir.'
He's supposed to be one of the best men in London.'
I am saying nothing against his moral character, sir."
"If there is one thing I dislike, it is the man who tries to air his grievances when I wish to air mine. "
"Marriage isn't a process of prolonging the life of love, but of mummifying the corpse."
"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."
"It is true of course, that I have a will of iron, but it can be switched off if the circumstances seem to demand it.''
"I am Psmith," said the old Etonian reverently. "There is a preliminary P before the name. This, however, is silent. Like the tomb. Compare such words as ptarmigan, psalm, and phthisis.''
''I mean to say, I know perfectly well that I've got, roughly speaking, half the amount of brain a normal bloke ought to possess. And when a girl comes along who has about twice the regular allowance, she too often makes a bee line for me with the love light in her eyes. I don't know how to account for it, but it is so.
'It may be Nature's provision for maintaining the balance of the species, sir.'.........."
"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.
"Cheer up, Crips, and keep smiling. That’s the thing to do. If you go through life with a smile on your face, you’ll be amazed how many people will come up to you and say ‘What the hell are you grinning about? What’s so funny?’ Make you a lot of new friends.''
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