Bertie Wooster quotes from Jeeves and Wooster

Now, touching at lunch, you very decently were going to volunteer to stand us...

Bertie Wooster

Can’t be done, I’m afraid. I’ve got to have lunch with our Aunt Agatha.

Oh... not the nephew-crusher.

Bertie.

Bertie Wooster

Aunt Agatha.

It is young men like you who make a person with the future of the race at heart despair.

Bertie Wooster

Oh. Right.

Bertie Wooster

Jeeves, I have to make one thing crystal clear.

Jeeves

Yes, sir?

Bertie Wooster

I am not one of those fellows who become absolute slaves to their valets.

Jeeves

[as if shocked] No, sir.

Bertie Wooster

Just as long as we understand each other.

Jeeves

Perfectly, sir.

Do you work, Mr. Wooster?

Bertie Wooster

What, work? As in honest toil, you mean? Hewing the wood and drawing the old wet stuff and so forth?

Quite.

Bertie Wooster

Well... I've known a few people who worked. Absolutely swear by it, some of them.

Bertie Wooster

You bally well are informed, Jeeves! Do you know everything?

Jeeves

[hesitates] I really don't know, sir.

Jeeves

Pardon me for asking, sir, but are you proposing to appear in public in those garments?

Bertie Wooster

Well, certainly, Jeeves. What — a bit vivid, do you think?

Jeeves

Not necessarily, sir. I am told that Mr. Freddie "He's a Riot" Flowerdew often appears on the music-hall stage in comparable attire.

Bertie Wooster

[having just finished playing "Forty-Seven Ginger-Headed Sailors"] Really speaks to me, that song, you know, Jeeves.

Jeeves

I'm sorry to hear that, sir.

Mr. Blumenfield's a fearfully important Broadway producer. I've got to read Mummy's play to him after lunch. I can't read to him in a restaurant.

Bertie Wooster

Yes, but why does he want jam roly-poly and oysters?

Oh, he doesn't. That's for his son. Apparently Mr. Blumenfield always banks on his verdict. He says an eight-year-old child's intelligence is exactly equal to a Broadway audience's.

Tuppy

Guess what? I'm going to the opera tonight.

Bertie Wooster

Opera, Tuppy?

Tuppy

Cora's singing in the, um, Barber of Figaro.

Bertie Wooster

Is that the one about the pyramids?

Sounds like it, by the name.

Tuppy

I've never been to the opera before. Would you like to come with me, Bertie?

Bertie Wooster

Ahh, well…. [They eventually see Le nozze di Figaro, a k a The Marriage of Figaro.]

Bertie Wooster

Tell me, Jeeves, were you always like this, or did it come on suddenly?

Jeeves

Sir?

Bertie Wooster

The brain, the gray matter. Were you an outstandingly brilliant child?

Jeeves

My mother thought me intelligent, sir.

Bertie

Well, can't go by that. My mother thought me intelligent.

Bertie Wooster

[about the song "Good Night, Vienna"] I mean, fancy writing a song about saying good night to a whole city. I mean, you may as well say, "Good Afternoon, Manchester" or "Fancy Bumping Into You, Basingstoke."

Jeeves

Yes, sir.

Bertie Wooster

Or "I Didn't See You at the Club Last Night, Cleethorpes."

Bertie Wooster

You look positively animated, Jeeves!

Jeeves

[straightening his jacket] I'm sorry, sir.

Jeeves

The boy is a flyer, sir.

Bertie Wooster

How do you know?

Jeeves

I happened to be pursuing him this morning with a view to fetching him a clip on the side of the head.

Bertie Wooster

Great Scott, Jeeves! You?

Jeeves

The lad is of an outspoken disposition, sir, and had made an opprobrious remark respecting my appearance.

Bertie Wooster

What did he say about your appearance?

Jeeves

[coldly] I do not recall, sir. But it was opprobrious.

Jeeves

[waking him up] Good morning, Mr. Wooster.

Bertie Wooster

What? What's the time?

Jeeves

Ten past nine, sir.

Bertie Wooster

[irritated] Ten past nine!? Is the building on fire?

Jeeves

Not that I've been informed, sir, no.

Bertie Wooster

I can't understand Gussie Fink-Nottle being in London, Jeeves. Till now he's always remained glued to the country, completely surrounded by newts.

Jeeves

Sir?

Bertie Wooster

[speaking to doorman] Morning, Jarvis. [turning again to Jeeves] Newts. You know, Jeeves, those little lizard-y things that charge about in ponds.

Jeeves

Ah, yes, sir. The aquatic members of the family Salamandridae that constitute the genus Molge.

Bertie Wooster

Yes, they're the chaps.