Live for love

 Women are practical. They get right down to bedrock about things, and no woman is going to waste much time remembering a man who was fool enough to kill himself. Thing to do is live for love, not die for it.

(from Sackett, by Louis L'Amour)

Nothing to brag about

 Not that it was likely she could ever see me. Girl that pretty had her choice of men. Nobody ever said much about me being good-looking - except Ma - and even Ma, with the best intentions in the world, looked kind of doubtful when she said it.

(from Sackett, by Louis L'Amour)

Look before you lunch

But a very different Bassett from the fizzy rejoicer who had exited so short a while before. Then he had been all buck and beans, as any father would have been whose daughter was not going to marry Gussie Fink-Nottle. Now his face was drawn and his general demeanour that of an incautious luncher who discovers when there is no time to draw back that he has swallowed a rather too elderly oyster.

(from Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

The target was too tempting

     "Of course, one can see it from Sir Watkyn's point of view," said Stinker, who, if he has a fault besides bumping into furniture and upsetting it, is always far too tolerant in his attitude toward the dregs of humanity. "He thinks that if I'd drilled the distinction between right and wrong more vigorously into the minds of the Infants Bible Class, the thing wouldn't have happened."

    "I don't see why not," said Stiffy.

    Nor did I. In my opinion, no amount of Sunday afternoon instruction would have been sufficient to teach a growing boy not to throw hard-boiled eggs at Sir Watkyn Bassett.

(from Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Speaking of fathers-in-law

    "But you can't marry Emerald Stoker."

    "Why not? We're twin souls."

    I thought for a moment of giving him a word-portrait of old Stoker, to show him the sort of father-in-law he would be getting if he carried through the project he had in mind, but I let it go. Reason told me that a fellow who for months had been expecting to draw Pop Bassett as a father-in-law was not going to be swayed by an argument like that. However frank my description of him, Stoker could scarcely seem anything but a change for the better.

(from Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

What else could you expect?

     When he returned, he found me examining the photographs on the wall. The one on which my eye was resting at the moment was a school football group, and it was not difficult to spot the identity of the juvenile delinquent holding the ball and sitting in the middle.

    "You?" I said.

    "That's me," he replied. "My last year at school. I skippered the side that season. That's old Scrubby Willoughby sitting next to me. Fast wing threequarter, but never would learn to give the reverse pass."

    "He wouldn't?" I said, shocked. I hadn't the remotest what he was talking about, but he had said enough to show me that this Willoughby must have been a pretty dubious character, and when he went on to tell me that poor old Scrubby had died of cirrhosis of the liver in the Federal Malay States, I wasn't really surprised. I imagine these fellows who won't learn to give the reverse pass generally come to a fairly sticky end.

(from Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Frogs? Yellow frogs?

     It was a moment fraught with embarrassment. It's bad enough to be caught by your host prowling about his house after hours even when said host is a warm admirer and close personal friend, and I have, I think, made it clear that Pop Bassett was not one of my fans. He could barely stand the sight of me by daylight, and I suppose I looked even worse to him at one o'clock in the morning.

    My feeling of having been slapped between the eyes with a custard pie was deepened by the spectacle of his dressing gown. He was a small man - you got the impression, seeing him, that when they were making magistrates there wasn't enough material left over when they came to him - and for some reason not easy to explain it nearly always happens that the smaller the ex-magistrate, the louder the dressing gown. His was a bright purple number with yellow frogs, and I am not deceiving my public when I say that it smote me like a blow, rendering me speechless.

(from Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)