P. G. Wodehouse Quotes

He will be the last to discover the disgrace of his house.

I assume the closest members of my family don't actually want to kill me, but the truth is that I have shamed and hurt them; they have to deal with the outrage that my public statements cause, and undoubtedly some members of my clan do want to kill me for that.

If I ever spat at an opponent, I'd never be able to show my face to my family ever again.

Thou art a cat, and a rat, and a coward.

The murderer only takes the life of the parent and leaves his character as a goodly heritage to his children, whilst the slanderer takes away his goodly reputation and leaves him a living monument to his children's disgrace.

Because no man wants to be a coward in front of a cheese.

My daughter," I said blankly. "I see. Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought it took a man, as well as a woman, to make a child. Is this infant's father to be a crab, or a seagull maybe? Or were you planning to shipwreck some likely sailor on my doorstep, so I can make convenient use of him?

Had (I) been a member of a more popular race, I should have been inclined to yield to the temptation of depending upon my ancestry and my colour to do that for me which I should do for myself. Years ago I resolved that because I had no ancestry myself I would leave a record of which my children would be proud, and which might encourage them to still higher effort

When children feel understood, their loneliness and hurt diminish. When children are understood, their love for their parent is deepened. A parent's sympathy serves as emotional first aid for bruised feelings. When we genuinely acknowledge a child's plight and voice her disappointment, she often gathers the strength to face reality.

Being Southerners, it was a source of shame to some members of the family that we had no recorded ancestors on either side of the Battle of Hastings.

The best that we can hope for in this life is that we shall not have sons and grandsons of whom we need to be ashamed.

Having children is something we think we ought to do because our parents did it, but when it is over the children are just other members of the human race, rather disappointingly.

It is a duty we owe to posterity to see that our children shall know the virtues, and rise worthy of their sires.

I don't want to leave this mess around my children to clean up. I want to swing absolutely as hard as I can to straighten things out before they get to the age where it starts hurting them.

Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother?

Hereditary honors are a noble and a splendid treasure to descendants.

When you're screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they've given up on you.

Coward is the most misused word in our society.

For peace, with justice and honor, is the fairest and most profitable of possessions, but with disgrace and shameful cowardice, it is the most infamous and harmful of all.

If I sat back and decided to sell the product of my father and my grandfather's work, like a leech, you know I wouldn't be able to look at myself in the mirror... I want to be able to look at my father in 10 years' time and say, 'I'm proud of you, and you should be proud of me.'

Heaven grant me that I may thus rejoice in my children, thus see them ornaments to their Country, and blessings to their parents.

Being well satisfied that, for a man who thinks himself to be somebody, there is nothing more disgraceful than to hold himself up as honored, not on his own account, but for the sake of his forefathers. Yet hereditary honors are a noble and splendid treasure to descendants.

Do you see the irony at all, Tristan?’ I stare at him and shake my head. He seems determined not to speak again until I do. ‘What irony?’ I ask eventually, the words tumbling out in a hurried heap. ‘That I am to be shot as a coward while you get to live as one.

I was a coward. I went to the war.