Frasi di Pelham Grenville Wodehouse pagina 8

“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

“A slight throbbing about the temples told me that this discussion had reached saturation point.”

Origine: Jill, ragazza bizzarra, p. 176

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse: Frasi in inglese

“A young man with dark circles under his eyes was propping himself up against a penny-in-the-slot machine. An undertaker, passing at that moment, would have looked at this young man sharply, scenting business. So would a buzzard.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“Before my eyes he wilted like a wet sock.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro The Luck of the Bodkins

The Luck of the Bodkins (1935)

“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 libro Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954)

“Routine is the death to heroism.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954)

“At five minutes to eleven on the morning named he was at the station, a false beard and spectacles shielding his identity from the public eye. If you had asked him he would have said that he was a Scotch business man. As a matter of fact, he looked far more like a motor-car coming through a haystack.”

The Man Upstairs (1914)

“I had not failed to interpret the significance of that dark frown, that bitten lip and those flashing eyes, nor the way the willowy figure had quivered, indicating, unless she had caught a chill, that she was as sore as a sunburned neck.”

The Man with Two Left Feet (1917)

“At this moment, the laurel bush, which had hitherto not spoken, said "Psst!"”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Much Obliged, Jeeves

Much Obliged, Jeeves (1971)

“There are some things a chappie's mind absolutely refuses to picture, and Aunt Julia singing 'Rumpty-tiddley-umpty-ay' is one of them.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Summer Lightning

Summer Lightning (1929)

“Are you sure?’ I said that sure was just what I wasn’t anything but.”

The Man with Two Left Feet (1917)

“We do not tell old friends beneath our roof-tree that they are an offence to the eyesight.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Jeeves in the Offing

Jeeves in the Offing (1960)

“His was a life which lacked, perhaps, the sublimer emotions which raised Man to the level of the gods, but it was undeniably an extremely happy one. He never experienced the thrill of ambition fulfilled, but, on the other hand, he never knew the agony of ambition frustrated. His name, when he died, would not live for ever in England's annals; he was spared the pain of worrying about this by the fact that he had no desire to live for ever in England's annals. He was possibly as nearly contented a human being can be in this century of alarms and excursions.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“In one second, without any previous training or upbringing, he had become the wettest man in Worcestershire.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Something Fresh

Something Fresh (1915)

“Stiffy was one of those girls who enjoy in equal quantities the gall of an army mule and the calm insouciance of a fish on a slab of ice.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Very Good, Jeeves

Very Good, Jeeves (1930)

“She had a beaky nose, tight thin lips, and her eye could have been used for splitting logs in the teak forests of Borneo.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro The Code of the Woosters

The Code of the Woosters (1938)

“And a moment later there was a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and the relative had crossed the threshold at fifty m. p. h. under her own steam.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Much Obliged, Jeeves

Much Obliged, Jeeves (1971)

“Bingo swayed like a jelly in a high wind.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“He had been looking like a dead fish. He now looked like a deader fish, one of last year's, cast up on some lonely beach and left there at the mercy of the wind and tides.”

Eggs, Beans and Crumpets (1940)

“For some moments after silence had come like a poultice to heal the blows of sound, all that occupied his mind was the thought of what pests the gentler sex were when they got hold of a telephone. The instrument seemed to go to their heads like a drug. Connie Keeble, for instance. Nice sensible woman when you talked to her face to face, never tried to collar the conversation and all that, but the moment she got on the telephone, it was gab, gab, gab, and all about nothing.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“And, anyway, no matter how much you may behave like the deaf adder of Scripture which, as you are doubtless aware, the more one piped, the less it danced, or words to that effect, I shall carry on as planned.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Pigs Have Wings

Pigs Have Wings (1952)

“He committed mayhem upon his person. He did everything to him that a man can do who is hampered with boxing gloves.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“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.”

Ukridge (1924)

“Dedication: To my daughter Leonora without whose never-failing sympathy and encouragement this book would have been finished in half the time.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Summer Moonshine

Summer Moonshine (1938)

“And shove him into a dungeon with dripping walls and see to it that he is well gnawed by rats.”

The Heart of a Goof (1926)

“It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves

Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (1963)

“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.”

Blandings Castle (1935)

“I was reading in the paper the other day about those birds who are trying to split the atom, the nub being that they haven't the foggiest as to what will happen if they do. It may be all right. On the other hand, it may not be all right. And pretty silly a chap would feel, no doubt, if, having split the atom, he suddenly found the house going up in smoke and himself torn limb from limb.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves

Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (1963)

“And as he, too, seemed disinclined for chit-chat, we stood for some moments like a couple of Trappist monks who have run into each other at the dog races.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

“Beginning with a critique of my own limbs, which she said, justly enough, were nothing to write home about, this girl went on to dissect my manners, morals, intellect, general physique, and method of eating asparagus with such acerbity that by the time she had finished the best you could say of Bertram was that, so far as was known, he had never actually committed murder or set fire to an orphan asylum.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954)

“As a sleuth you are poor. You couldn’t detect a bass-drum in a telephone-booth.”

P.G. Wodehouse libro Right Ho, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)