Frasi di Pelham Grenville Wodehouse pagina 2

“Se le donne comprendessero le proprie responsabilità baderebbero bene a sorridere; tanto bene che probabilmente non lo farebbero.”

Origine: Citato in Rachael Hale, Centouno cataclismi. Per amore dei gatti, Contrasto, 2004, p. 24.

“Vi sono nella vita di un uomo momenti in cui il sorriso di una donna può avere risultati importanti quanto quelli di una esplosione di dinamite.”

Origine: Qualche cosa di nuovo, p. 117

“C'è qualcosa, nel modo in cui la primavera si manifesta in Inghilterra, che mi ricorda un cucciolo timido che cerca di farsi degli amici. Fa un avventato passo avanti, se la svigna terrorizzato, poi striscia di nuovo in avanti, timoroso, e infine, acquistata fiducia, si avventa con impeto e gioia.”

Origine: Qualche cosa di nuovo, p. 117

“Uno dei deliziosi aspetti della primavera inglese è che ha dei giorni, anzi, è quasi del tutto composta di giorni in cui, al tramonto, la temperatura è tale da rendere gradevole un fuoco, anzi persino necessario.”

Origine: La conquista di Londra, p. 72

“Uno dei difetti di Londra dal punto di vista di un uomo il cui cuore sia appena andato a pezzi è che è praticamente priva di luoghi selvaggi in cui si possa avanzare con sguardo impenetrabile.”

Origine: La conquista di Londra, p. 147

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse Frasi e Citazioni

“Era una bella mattinata. Si è già parlato dell'insensibilità della Natura nei momenti di umana sofferenza; basterà dire che in tale occasione la Natura era più che all'altezza della sua reputazione.”

Origine: La conquista di Londra, p. 235

“Il cammino del progresso ha tolto a Waterloo Station i suoi misteri. Un tempo era stato uno strano, oscuro Paese delle meraviglie in cui Alici spaurite e i loro corrispettivi maschili vagavano disperati, chiedendo informazioni a funzionari altrettanto ignari e sperduti: ora invece era ordinata ed efficiente.”

Origine: La conquista di Londra, p. 235

“Il ritorno del figliol prodigo è quasi proverbialmente legato a effervescenti manifestazioni di gioia da parte dell'intera compagnia con, forse, la sola eccezione del vitello ingrassato.”

Origine: La conquista di Londra, p. 242

“Placida, stolida, assorta nelle sue faccende e titanicamente indifferente a tutto il resto, Londra si avviava al suo tran tran quotidiano. Da Putney a Sloane Square, da Cricklewood a Regent Street, da Sydenham Hill allo Strand, da qualsiasi posto a qualsiasi altro posto, autobus rossi, gialli e marroni passavano rombando di continuo. I vigili vigilavano, gli agenti di borsa badavano alla borsa, i mendicanti mendicavano, i cappellai smerciavano cappelli, i poltroni poltrivano, i venditori di ghette vendevano ghette, i giornalai strillavano l'edizione delle tre dei giornali del pomeriggio, e i colonnelli in pensione sedevano comodamente alle finestre dei club di fronte a Piccadilly e Pall Mall, sognando il pranzo.”

Origine: La conquista di Londra, p. 266

“Il grande segreto dell'eterna giovinezza: far sempre circolare la bottiglia e non andare mai a letto prima delle quattro del mattino.”

Origine: La conquista di Londra, p. 293

“Anna parlava allegramente del più e del meno e io tacevo, perché la mia anima non era che un cumulo di emozioni ribollenti.”

Origine: Da Luna piena, ciclo di Blandings.

“Di tutte le cure intese a guarire un uomo da riflessioni malinconiche, quella di più immediata efficacia consiste in un colpo violento al plesso solare. Esempi antichi e recenti ce lo dimostrano.”

“Le fandonie, come tu le chiami, mentre io le definisco la modellazione artistica della verità, le fandonie, dunque, sono… come dirò?”

Origine: La piccola pepita, p. 86

“It was one of those parties where you cough twice before you speak and then decide not to say it after all.”

Origine: Jill, ragazza bizzarra, p. 176

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse: Frasi in inglese

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

“The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Love Among the Chickens

Origine: Love Among the Chickens

“There is only one cure for grey hair. It was invented by a Frenchman. It is called the guillotine.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro The Adventures of Sally

Origine: The Adventures of Sally (1922)

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

“If he had a mind, there was something on it.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro The Small Bachelor

Origine: The Small Bachelor

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

“I just sit at my typewriter and curse a bit.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Carry On, Jeeves

Origine: Carry on, Jeeves

“In a series of events, all of which had been a bit thick, this, in his opinion, achieved the maximum of thickness.”

“As we grow older and realize more clearly the limitations of human happiness, we come to see that the only real and abiding pleasure in life is to give pleasure to other people.”

“I hadn't the heart to touch my breakfast. I told Jeeves to drink it himself.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Something Fresh

Origine: Something Fresh

“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.”

“What's the use of a great city having temptations if fellows don't yield to them?”

Origine: Jeeves in the Morning

“I pressed down the mental accelerator. The old lemon throbbed fiercely. I got an idea.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Carry On, Jeeves

Origine: Carry on, Jeeves

“It is no use telling me there are bad aunts and good aunts. At the core, they are all alike. Sooner or later, out pops the cloven hoof.”

“Some minds are like soup in a poor restaurant—better left unstirred.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro The Code of the Woosters

The Code of the Woosters (1938)

“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.”

“Hell, it is well known, has no fury like a woman who wants her tea and can't get it.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Doctor Sally

Origine: Doctor Sally

“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.”

Origine: Very Good, Jeeves!

“Whenever I get that sad, depressed feeling, I go out and kill a policeman.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit

Origine: Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit

“She fitted into my biggest armchair as if it had been built round her by someone who knew they were wearing armchairs tight about the hips that season.”

“It was one of the dullest speeches I ever heard. The Agee woman told us for three quarters of an hour how she came to write her beastly book, when a simple apology was all that was required.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Carry On, Jeeves

Very Good, Jeeves (1930)
Origine: Carry on, Jeeves

“Well, you know, there are limits to the sacred claims of friendship.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro The Girl in Blue

Origine: The Girl in Blue (1970)

“He felt like a man who, chasing rainbows, has had one of them suddenly turn and bite him in the leg.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Carry On, Jeeves

Origine: Carry on, Jeeves

“We Woosters do not lightly forget. At least, we do - some things - appointments, and people's birthdays, and letters to post, and all that - but not an absolutely bally insult like the above.”

Eggs, Beans and Crumpets (1940)

“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.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro The Inimitable Jeeves

Origine: The Inimitable Jeeves

“What do ties matter, Jeeves, at a time like this?'
There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter”

P.G. Wodehouse libro The Adventures of Sally

Origine: The Adventures of Sally (1922)

“Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French. One of the things which Gertrude Butterwick had impressed on Monty Bodkin when he left for his holiday on the Riviera was that he must be sure to practise his French, and Gertrude’s word was law. So now, though he knew that it was going to make his nose tickle, he said:
‘Er, garçon.’
‘M’sieur?’
‘Er, garçon, esker-vous avez un spot de l’encre et une piece de papier—note papier, vous savez—et une envelope et une plume.’
The strain was too great. Monty relapsed into his native tongue.
‘I want to write a letter,’ he said. And having, like all lovers, rather a tendency to share his romance with the world, he would probably have added ‘to the sweetest girl on earth’, had not the waiter already bounded off like a retriever, to return a few moments later with the fixings.
‘V’la, sir! Zere you are, sir,’ said the waiter. He was engaged to a girl in Paris who had told him that when on the Riviera he must be sure to practise his English. ‘Eenk—pin—pipper—enveloppe—and a liddle bit of bloddin-pipper.’
‘Oh, merci,’ said Monty, well pleased at this efficiency. ‘Thanks. Right-ho.’
‘Right-ho, m’sieur,’ said the waiter.”

“The drowsy stillness of the afternoon was shattered by what sounded to his strained senses like G. K. Chesterton falling on a sheet of tin.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro The Luck of the Bodkins

Origine: The Luck of the Bodkins (1935)