Bicky rocked, like a jelly in a high wind.

Sober or blotto, this is your motto: keep muddling through.

Bertie : [on Gussie] Any message for him?Roderick Spode - 8th Earl of Sidcup: Yes. Tell him I'm going to break his neck.Bertie : Break his neck, right. And, if he should ask why?Roderick Spode - 8th Earl of Sidcup : He knows why. Because he is a butterfly, who toys with women's hearts and throws them away like soiled gloves!Bertie : Do butterflies do that?Roderick Spode - 8th Earl of Sidcup : Are you trying to be funny?

It would take more than long-stemmed roses to change my view that you're a despicable cowardy custard and a disgrace to a proud family. Your ancestors fought in the Crusades and were often mentioned in despatches, and you cringe like a salted snail at the thought of appearing as Santa Claus before an audience of charming children who wouldn't hurt a fly. It's enough to make an aunt turn her face to the wall and give up the struggle.

She gave me another of those long keen looks, and I could see that she was again asking herself if her favourite nephew wasn't steeped to the tonsils in the juice of the grape.

I don't know if it has ever occurred to you, but to the thoughtful cove there is something dashed reassuring in all the reports if burglaries you read in the papers. I mean, if you're keen on Great Britain maintaining her prestige and all that. I mean, there can't be much wrong with the moral of a country whose sons go in to such a large extent for housebreaking, because you can take it from me that the job requires a nerve of the more cast-iron description.

Humour, if one looks into it, is principally a matter of retrospect.

Fascination exists only in the imagination of the fascinated.

She laughed - a bit louder than I could have wished in my frail state of health, but then she is always a woman who tends to bring plaster falling from the ceiling when amused.