The cats probably appreciated him

     The more he mused on L. P. Green, the more remote seemed the prospect of any girl betrothed to him deciding to do the sensible thing and detach herself from him. True, only a handful of the six hundred and forty-three pupils at the ancient foundation at which he had been educated had excelled L. P. Green as stinkers, but girls are sadly apt not to allow themselves to be influenced by a man's moral shortcomings. The outer crust rather than the soul within is what appeals to them, and it was futile to pretend that the outer crust of L. P. Green was not exceptional. And all he, Bill Hardy, had to pit against it was an honest heart and a certain rude skill at getting cats down from trees.

(from The Purloined Paperweight, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Just be patient, this too shall pass

     "Engaged to someone else, yes," he conceded. "But only to Lionel Green." And when Bill said that he didn't see what the name of the man she was going to marry mattered, the salient fact being that she was going to marry him, he replied that that, on the contrary, was the whole nub and gist, because it was out of the question that any girl, however much she might in a moment of temporary insanity have got betrothed to him, would think seriously of marrying Lionel Green. The madness was bound to pass, leaving her once more in circulation.

(from The Purloined Paperweight, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Just kiss her!

     In her bedroom Kelly lit the last cigarette of the day and gave herself up to meditation. She was thinking how much she loved Henry and wishing, for her woman's instinct toldher that he felt the same for her as she did for him, that he could bring himself to adopt the forthright methods of the late Theodore Stickney. She had spoken to Jane of Theodore kissing her like a ton of bricks, and it was precisely thus that he would have liked Henry to kiss her. His failure to do so, she supposed, was due to his being English. An Englishman, she thought bitterly, would have to have a signed permit from a girl before he felt justified in kissing her.

(from The Purloined Paperweight, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Apt description of true love

     The purchase of the chocolate bars completed, they came out into the street.

    "Well," said Jane, and she was so plainly about the add the word 'Goodbye' that Bill hastened to interrupt her. This conversation had confirmed him in the opinion that a single moment spent without her at his side would be a moment wasted.

(from The Purloined Paperweight, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Blotted what?

     "So we got engaged. The family put up a considerable beef when it was announced, of course, and I don't blame them, because I wasn't everybody's dream girl and they thought Theodore was blotting the what's that thing you blot?"

    "The escutcheon?"

    "Is that it? Escutcheon sounds to me like some kind of fish."

(from The Purloined Paperweight, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Not in this club, you don't!

     Everything about this club of Lionel's depressed Jane, and not least the ordeal to which visitors were subjected immediately on entering. They found themselves in a vast hall liberally provided with repellent-looking statues and presided over by a porter who might have been the model for any one of them. To him they have their names and the name of their host, and the porter, plainly not believing their story for a moment but deciding that it would be amusing to lure them on beore exposing their pretensions, dispatched a page in quest of the member they asked for, confident that he would return with the information that the gentleman had nevr heard of them in his life. And that, he seemed to be saying, would teach them not to come here trying to borrow money.

(from The Purloined Paperweight, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Helene Whitney's connections

     Actress Helene Whitney was active in films from 1939 to 1948. She had some impressive connections in her non-Hollywood life. For instance, on her mother's side she was a grandniece and cousin twice removed of Alexander Graham Bell. Her father was a first cousin once removed of President Teddy Roosevelt. She was married for three years to Richard Reynolds, heir to the aluminum and tobacco fortunes.

Avoid him if possible

     "Then be on the alert. Have a care that he doesn't get called to the telephone at the end of the meal, leaving you stuck with the bill. Your best policy, of course, would be to sever relations over the after-luncheon coffee. Yes, that's the thing to do. Tell him you've been giving it some thought during his absence, and it's all off."

"Won't that offend him?"

"On the contrary. He'll applaud your good sense. He knows perfectly well what a hound and Tishbite he is. People have been telling him for years. I was at school with L. P. Green and I have a fund of stories about him, all stressing his unfitness for human consumption. He has absolutely nothing to recommend him as a biological specimen."

(from The Purloined Paperweight, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

She trusted him

Long ago there was a lady left money with me. She has never returned and when I tried the name she gave me and the place, nothing was known, but someday, needing it, she will seek me out. She will find lands she owns and a house here and there, and each year I study the money and judge what must be done with it, for she was a woman who trusted at least one man and shall not regret it.

(from Fair Blows the Wind, by Louis L'Amour) 

He acts his nature

     "Each of us does what he must do. I may kill the wolf who kills my sheep, but I understand him, too If the wolf must die that my sheep may live, so be it. But I ned not hate the wolf for what it is his nature to be."

(from Fair Blows the Wind, by Louis L'Amour)

Eliminate the competition

     "Like all the Irish," he said, amused, "you talk easily, and always with the right words." He scowled. "Chantry, I know not the name. Should there not be a Mac or an O before it?"

    "I had another name once," I said, "but put it aside long since I discovered," I spoke wryly, "that those of my name did not live long. When a land is taken and the people remain unconquered it is considered wise to eliminate all those about who an uprising might gather."

(from Fair Blows the Wind, by Louis L'Amour)

Strive to be useful

     I directed the loading of supplies, food, extra canvas, and I watched the storage of powder and shot. In every way I attempted to make myself useful. Clifford might wish for bold men, but useful men were just as necessary.

(from Fair Blows the Wind, by Louis L'Amour)

Persistence

     "My old master, George Bishop, used to say that writing was not only talent, but it was character, the character of the writer. Many are called, he would say, but few are chosen, and it is character that chooses them. In the last analysis it is persistence that matters."

(from Fair Blows the Wind, by Louis L'Amour)

Wild-sounding language

     An old woman appeared from the bracken as though rising from it, and I saw for the first time a path there. She spoke to Fergus and her Gaelic held a wild, strange sound unlike any I'd heard, but pleasant to the ear. It set me to thinking of the bagpipes sounding across the moors.

(from Fair Blows the Wind, by Louis L'Amour)

Paddy's pig

     "Lad, lad! D'y' think I ken not your Gaelic? You're Irish as Paddy's pig, and so am I, but there's those who would have my heart if the chance offered."

(from Fair Blows the Wind, by Louis L'Amour. I like that expressions, "Irish as Paddy's pig.")

The old breed

     What had become, I wondered, of the old breed? Of the Pizarros, of the Ponce de Leons, the Balboas and the Alvarados? They were hard, fierce men, many of them survivors of the Moorish wars. Bloody men in a bloody time, but in their own way they had been ruthlessly efficient. Nothing had stopped them.

    These people before me were the latecomers, the courtiers, the politicians, skilled at intrigue and the use of family and political connections, who had outwitted the conquistadores at court, robbing them of the fruits of their hard-won battles and taking the profits for themselves. But the lions had made the kill, and the vultures now ate the meat.

(from Fair Blows the Wind, by Louis L'Amour)

An honest man

     "Captain, to be an honest man is not easy, but I fear that that is what I am. It is an affliction of mine that tries me sorely. Yet . . . what can a man do? I want only what is mine, and not to trade upon the happiness or unhappiness of others."

(from Fair Blows the Wind, by Louis L'Amour)

Irish class

     I have never been one to weep, nor to bewail my fortunes, which God knows have been ill enough, and I cannot find it in me to don the mantle of Job. Perhaps it is that I am Irish. We Irish wear the cloak of adversity with style.

(from Fair Blows the Wind, by Louis L'Amour)