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Sir P G Wodehouse, KBELuminary

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Sir P G Wodehouse, KBE

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE (PG Wodehouse) was an author and writer widely regarded as one of the most widely read humourists of the 20th century. 

I know I was writing stories when I was five. I don't know what I did before that. Just loafed I suppose.

I love writing. I never feel really comfortable unless I am either actually writing or have a story going. I could not stop writing.

His first novel, The Pothunters was published in 1902 - his early novels were mostly school stories, but he later switched to comic fiction, creating several regular characters who became familiar to the public over the years.

Most of Wodehouse's fiction is set in England, although he spent much of his life in the US and used New York and Hollywood as settings for some of his novels and short stories. He also wrote a series of Broadway musical comedies during and after the First World War.

I don’t know if you have had the same experience, but the snag I always come up against when I’m telling a story is this dashed difficult problem of where to begin it.

It's a funny thing about looking for things. If you hunt for a needle in a haystack you don't find it. If you don't give a darn whether you ever see the needle or not it runs into you the first time you lean against the stack.

Wodehouse worked extensively on his books, sometimes having two or more in preparation simultaneously. He would take up to two years to build a plot and write a scenario of about thirty thousand words.

As we grow older and realise more clearly the limitations of human happiness, we come to see that the only real and abiding pleasure in life is to give pleasure to other people.

He created several regular characters who became familiar to the public over the years, they include the jolly gentleman of leisure Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet Jeeves;

Bertie Wooster and his resourceful manservant Jeeves appeared in over thirty short stories between 1915 and the publication of their first novel, Thank You, Jeeves, in 1934.

During the 1930s, Wodehouse was at the peak of his productivity, averaging two books each year, and grossing an annual income of £100,000.

In 1934 Wodehouse moved to France for tax reasons and he never returned to England.

If there is one thing I dislike, it is the man who tries to air his grievances when I wish to air mine.
Everything in life that’s any fun, as somebody wisely observed, is either immoral, illegal or fattening.

From 1947 until his death he lived in the US, taking dual British-American citizenship in 1955. He was a prolific writer throughout his life, publishing more than ninety books, forty plays, two hundred short stories and other writings between 1902 and 1974.

Cats, as a class, have never completely got over the snootiness caused by the fact that in ancient Egypt they were worshipped as gods. This makes them prone to set themselves up as critics and censors of the frail and erring human beings whose lot they share.

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