Bertie Quotes

Working with the children on 'Matilda' has been a joy. They don't do this professionally - their sense of discovery is instinctive, and the challenge for us adults is to keep that going in ourselves when we're doing it for the fiftieth or the hundredth time. To my delight and amazement, it hasn't gone stale - we discover it freshly every time. ~ Bertie Carvel

I was writing a story, 'The Artistic Career of Corky,' about two young men, Bertie Wooster and his friend Corky, getting into a lot of trouble, and neither of them had brains enough to get out of the trouble. I thought: Well, how can I get them out? And I thought: Suppose one of them had an omniscient valet? ~ P.G. Wodehouse

That law that created the native corporations was the idea of tanik American corporations to undermine tribal integrity." "What do you mean?" Bertie asks. "Everywhere else in the U.S., tribes have their own government, their own land, and their own money." "They have a monopoly on casinos, you mean," Bertie says cautiously. "Whatever it is. Our tribes in Alaska don't have nothing. It's the native corporations who have all the land and the money, and they're the ones making decisions." "But don't you think they're making decisions in the best interests of their shareholders, the native people?" "They're just making money for their shareholders like any other corporation," Mandy says. "And they hire taniks in Anchorage offices to carry out their business. They don't care about whether people up here are taking their dividends and drinking them away. I hate to say it, but I got to agree with Luther. It's a long, slow genocide, all done under the corporations' laws. ~ Elizaveta Ristrova

I say, Bertie," he said, after a pause of about an hour and a quarter.
"Hallo!"
"Do you like the name Mabel?"
"No."
"No?"
"No."
"You don't think there's a kind of music in the word, like the wind rustling gently through the tree-tops?"
"No."
He seemed disappointed for a moment; then cheered up.
"Of course, you wouldn't. You always were a fat-headed worm without any soul, weren't you?"
"Just as you say. Who is she? Tell me all. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Actors tend to be quite good at getting on with people. If you're an arsehole, people don't want to work with you. You won't get hired Well, there are a few arseholes. ~ Bertie Carvel

I think. as a child, there's something frightening about certain adults, particularly when you're in their clutches or power. That must be the reason why Roald Dahl creates such brilliant characters: He taps into something in the collective memory of people. ~ Bertie Carvel

Pretty soft!' he cried. 'To have to come and live in New York! To have to leave my little cottage and take a stuffy, smelly, over-heated hole of an apartment in this Heaven-forsaken, festering Gehenna. To have to mix night after night with a mob who think that life is a sort of St Vitus's dance, and imagine that they're having a good time because they're making enough noise for six and drinking too much for ten. I loathe New York, Bertie. I wouldn't come near the place if I hadn't got to see editors occasionally. There's a blight on it. It's got moral delirium tremens. It's the limit. The very thought of staying more than a day in it makes me sick. And you call this thing pretty soft for me!'
I felt rather like Lot's friends must have done when they dropped in for a quiet chat and their genial host began to criticise the Cities of the Plain. I had no idea old Rocky could be so eloquent.
'It would kill me to have to live in New York,' he went on. 'To have to share the air with six million people! TO have to wear stiff collars and decent clothes all the time! To - ' He started. 'Good Lord! I suppose I should have to dress for dinner in the evenings. What a ghastly notion!'
I was shocked, absolutely shocked.
'My dear chap!' I said, reproachfully.
'Do you dress for dinner every night, Bertie?'
'Jeeves,' I said coldly. 'How many suits of evening clothes have we?'
'We have three suits full of evening dress, sir; two dinner jackets- '
'Three.' ~ P.G. Wodehouse

And you can call me Bertie. Unexpected use of Beatrice makes me think I'm in trouble. ~ Lisa Mantchev

I'm a socialist. I'm amazed at how the spirit of socialism is alive and well in New York. I had always thought I wouldn't want to be here without a lot of money, but I was wrong about that. ~ Bertie Carvel

He was the sort of languid and elegant young man one would expect to find at a country house party, playing croquet with Bertie Wooster. Frightfully good fun, but not too many brains. ~ Rhys Bowen

In love with me. Don't be absurd."
"My dear old thing, you don't know young Bingo. He can fall in love with anybody."
"Thank you!"
"Oh, I didn't mean it that way, you know. I don't wonder at his taking to you. Why, I was in love with you myself once."
"Once? Ah! And all that remains now are the cold ashes? This isn't once of your tactful evenings, Bertie."
"Well, my dear sweet thing, dash it all, considering that you gave me the bird and nearly laughed yourself into a permanent state of hiccoughs when I asked you - "
"Oh, I'm not reproaching you. No doubt there were faults on both sides. He's very good-looking, isn't he?"
"Good-looking? Bingo? Bingo good-looking? No, I say, come now, really!"
"I mean, compared with some people," said Cynthia. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Could he be my Bertie, the cheeky butcher's boy? I had walked out with him when I was a reluctant servant in Mr Buchanan's household. Dear funny Bertie, who had been so self-conscious about reeking of meat. Bertie, the boy who had taken me to the fair and won me the little black-and-white china dog that was in my suitcase now, carefully wrapped in my nightgown to prevent any chips. ~ Jacqueline Wilson

Lady Glossip: Mr. Wooster, how would you support a wife? Bertie Wooster: Well, I suppose it depends on who's wife it was, a little gentle pressure beneath the elbow while crossing a busy street usually fits the bill. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

I particularly recommend," [Dain] went on, his eyes upon the female, "that you resist the temptation to count if you are contemplating a gift for your chère amie. Women deal in a higher mathematical realm than men, especially when it comes to gifts."


"That, Bertie, is a consequence of the feminine brain having reached a more advanced state of development," said the female without looking up. "She recognizes that the selection of a gift requires the balancing of a profoundly complicated moral, psychological, aesthetic, and sentimental equation. I should not recommend that a mere male attempt to involve himself in the delicate process of balancing it, especially by the primitive method of counting. ~ Loretta Chase

It might sound glib, but in a sense, as an actor I'm a journalist and a psychologist recording life and truth. ~ Bertie Carvel

The collar had restrained his winds but not killed them. They uncoiled from behind the shadows, ready to surround her, to lift her up, to carry her away with only Ariel's silk-clad arms wrapped about her to keep her from falling.
Spirare, they whispered to her like an incantation. Breathe us in.
Bertie didn't mean to, but she inhaled, and everything inside her was a spring morning, a rose opening its petals to the sun, the light coming through the wavering glass of an old, diamond-paned window.
Tendrils of wind reached for Bertie with a coaxing hand. Release him, and he will love you. ~ Lisa Mantchev

It can't be done, old thing. Sorry, but it's out of the question. I couldn't go through all that again."
"Not for me?"
"Not for a dozen more like you."
"I never thought," said Bingo sorrowfully, "to hear those words from Bertie Wooster!"
"Well, you've heard them now," I said. "Paste them in your hat."
"Bertie, we were at school together."
"It wasn't my fault."
"We've been pals for fifteen years."
"I know. It's going to take me the rest of my life to live it down. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

I will be your wife, Bertie.' There didn't seem much to say to this except 'Oh, thanks. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Bertie, it is imperative that you marry."
"But, dash it all ... "
"Yes! You should be breeding children to ... "
"No, really, I say, please!" I said, blushing richly. Aunt Agatha belongs to two or three of these women's clubs, and she keeps forgetting she isn't in the smoking-room. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Bertie stared at his mother. She spoils things, he thought. All she ever does is spoil things.
He had not started this conversation, and it was not his fault that they were now talking about Grey Owl. He sounded rather a nice man to Bertie. Any why should he not dress up in feathers and live in the forests if that was what he wanted to do? It was typical of his mother to try to spoil Grey Owl's fun. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

It's an odd experience reading interviews with yourself. Interesting, though. Of course, you know that the journalist will have edited, rephrased or even rewritten what you actually said, but you can't help feeling that there's a special kind of truth in the way someone else paints you, however subjective they might be. ~ Bertie Carvel

Sitting on the sidelines, cribbing and moaning is a lost opportunity. I don't know how people who engage in that don't commit suicide. ~ Bertie Ahern

His tiny, naked butt disappeared into the stream as he cried, "Wheeeee! Balls out!"
I think that's a rugby reference," Bertie said. "But don't quote me on that. ~ Lisa Mantchev

Elizabeth was so sweet this afternoon trying to show P.B. his sitting room. He became absorbed in some jungle prints along the passage and would not come. The corners of her mouth went down after the third attempt & putting both hands on his shoulders she said angelically: 'Bertie do listen to me.' He kissed her and came at once. ~ William Shawcross

One o' these days, lass, I'm goin' t' still that mouth o' yers. - Nate ~ Lisa Mantchev

Abandon the idea, Jeeves. I fear you have not studied the sex as I have. Missing her lunch means little or nothing to the female of the species. The feminine attitude toward lunch is notoriously airy and casual. Where you have made your bloomer is confusing lunch with tea. Hell, it is well known, has no fury like a woman who wants her tea and can't get it. At such times the most amiable of the sex become mere bombs which a spark may ignite. Bertie Wooster ~ P.G. Wodehouse

I came to musical theatre from straight acting, and a lot of my friends have a real prejudice about musical theatre - one I probably shared. ~ Bertie Carvel

I've been through a bad time, Bertie, these last weeks. The sun ceased to shine - "
"That's curious. We've had gorgeous weather in London."
"The birds ceased to sing."
"What birds?"
"What the devil does it matter what birds?" said young BIngo, with some asperity. "Any birds. The birds round about here. You don't expect me to specify them by their pet names, do you? I tell you, Bertie, it hit me hard at first, very hard."
"What hit you?" I simply couldn't follow the blighter.
"Charlotte's calculated callousness. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

I live close to Hampstead Heath, so when I do have spare time, I like to raise my white blood cell count with a swim in the men's pond. It's an ambition of mine to swim in the ponds on every day of the year. ~ Bertie Carvel

I worship her, Bertie! I worship the very ground she treads on! continued the patient, in a loud, penetrating voice. Fred thompson and one or two fellows had come in, and McGarry, the chappie behind the bar, was listening with his ears flapping. But there's no reticence about Bingo. He always reminds me of the hero of a musical comedy who takes the centre of the stage, gathers the boys round him in a circle, and tells them all about his love at the top of his voice. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

I really such a terrible mother?' she asked Bertie. 'Why the past tense?' Bertie said. Sow ~ Kate Atkinson

You must meet old Rowbotham, Bertie. A delightful chap. Wants to massacre the bourgeoisie, sack Park Lane and disembowel the hereditary aristocracy. Well, nothing could be fairer than that, what? ~ P.G. Wodehouse

No, I am quite content with you, Bertie. By the way, I do dislike that name Bertie. I think I shall call you Harold. Yes, I am perfectly satisfied with you. You have many faults, of course. I shall be pointing some of them out when I am at leisure. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Say ye love me.Even if its not true, let me keep th' words.
-Nate to Bertie
Tell me you love me, at least as much as you love him.
-Ariel to Bertie ~ Lisa Mantchev

Ah! Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans! I was unfortunate enough in my youth to come across a vomit-flavored one, and since then I'm afraid I've rather lost my liking for them - but I think I'll be safe with a nice toffee, don't you?"
He smiled and popped the golden-brown bean into his mouth.
"Alas! Ear wax! ~ J.K. Rowling

Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day's shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it." Here the child's voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. "Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back some day, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing 'Bertie, why do you bound?' as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window - ~ Saki

Mr Brown is a politician of exceptional experience and ability, and I am sure he will discharge the office of Prime Minister with distinction ~ Bertie Ahern

My mom, the fabulous Bertie Kinsey, is an amazing seamstress. She quilts and sews and is so crafty. We call her the Southern Martha Stewart! ~ Angela Kinsey

He was a baby once, she thought. New and perfect, cradled in his mother's arms. The mysterious Sylvie. Now he was a feathery husk, ready to blow away. His eyes were half open, milky, like an old dog, and his mouth had grown beaky with the extremity of age, opening and closing, a fish out of water. Bertie could feel a continual tremor running through him, an electrical current, the faint buzz of life. Or death, perhaps. Energy was gathering around him, the air was static with it. ~ Kate Atkinson

I'm Bertie Byrd. I rent your house since you don't live here anymore." "Did you say Dirty Bird?" He laughed out loud. "Oh, that's a good one, Mr. Fortney. I never heard that one before. A real knee-slapper. Where's the key? ~ Dolores Wilson

See the man they are fitting into the bottom slot. He is coughing badly. No, not pneumonia. Not tuberculosis. Nothing so picturesque. Gently, gently, stretcher-bearers… he is about done. He is coughing up clots of pinky-green filth. Only his lungs, Mother and Mrs. Evans-Mawington. He is coughing well to-night. That is gas. You've heard of gas. Haven't you? It burns and shrivels the lungs to… to the mess you see on the ambulance floor there. He's about the age of Bertie, Mother. Not unlike Bertie, either, with his gentle brown eyes and fair curly hair. Bertie would look up pleading like that in between coughing up his lungs… The son you have so generously given to the War. Cough, cough, little fair-haired boy. Perhaps somewhere your mother is thinking of you… boasting of the life she has so nobly given… the life you thought was your own, but which is hers to squander as she thinks fit. 'My boy is not a slacker, thank God.' Cough away, little boy, cough away. What does it matter, providing your mother doesn't have to face the shame of her son's cowardice? ~ Helen Zenna Smith

If Bertie was a god (a favourite fantasy), she would be manufacturing things there was a shortage of - bees, tigers, dormice - not flip-flops and phone covers and toothpaste. ~ Kate Atkinson

Feminine psychology is admittedly odd, sir. The poet Pope ... "
"Never mind about the poet Pope, Jeeves."
"No, sir."
"There are times when one wants to hear all about the poet Pope and times when one doesn't."
"Very true, sir. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

What color is pandemonium? It sounds yellow. ~ Lisa Mantchev

Will you be my friend?" Bertie asked. And then added: "Just for Paris. You don't have to be my friend forever – just for Paris. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

I may hold ye at arm's length ... But I want ye t' be mine an' mine alone. - Nate to Bertie, as they danced. ~ Lisa Mantchev

Prince Albert, or Bertie, as he was known in the family (his full names were Albert Frederick Arthur George), had been raised by nurses and tutors. His mother had played so little part in his upbringing that only after his nurse had suffered a nervous breakdown did she discover that the woman had not had a day off in over three years. ~ Theo Aronson

Jeeves," I said. "A rummy communication has arrived. From Mr. Glossop."
"Indeed, sir?"
"I will read it to you. Handed in at Upper Bleaching. Message runs as follows:
When you come tomorrow, bring my football boots. Also, if humanly possible, Irish water-spaniel. Urgent. Regards. Tuppy.
"What do you make of that, Jeeves?"
"As I interpret the document, sir, Mr. Glossop wishes you, when you come tomorrow, to bring his football boots. Also, if humanly possible, an Irish water-spaniel. He hints that the matter is urgent, and sends his regards."
"Yes, that is how I read it. But why football boots?"
"Perhaps Mr. Glossop wishes to play football, sir. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Acting is a mysterious process. ~ Bertie Carvel

If biscuits were stories, I'd bake a pan of piping hot fables right this second. (Bertie) ~ Lisa Mantchev

You're right. Many nurses nowadays don't like doing the things that nurses used to have to do. Changing sheets and collecting bedpans - that sort of thing. Nursing has moved on, Bertie.'
Bertie was puzzled. 'But if they don't do that,' he said, 'then who does? Do people have to tuck themselves into bed when they're in hospital?'
Irene was amused by this and raised her eyes again. 'Dear Bertie, no, not at all. They have other people now to do that sort of thing. There are other wome ... people who do that.' 'So they aren't nurses, Mummy?' asked Bertie. Irene waved a hand vaguely. 'No. They call them care assistants, or something like that. It's very important work.' 'So what do the nurses do then, Mummy? If they have somebody else to take the bedpans to the patients, what's left for the nurses to do? Do they do the things that doctors do? Can nurses take your tonsils out?' 'I think they'd like to,' said Irene. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

If you don't have any weird moments, you're weird ~ Bertie Gilbert

The Challenge is to pry Bertie loose from Dain and his circle of oafish dengenerates," Jessica said severely.
"It would be far more profitable to pry Dain loose for yourself," said her grandmother. "He is very wealthy, his lineage is excellent, he is young, strong, and healthy, and you feel a powerful attraction."
"He isn't husband material."
"What I have described is perfect husband material." said her grandmother.
"I don't want a husband."
"Jessica, no woman does who can regard men objectively. And you have always been magnificently objective. ~ Loretta Chase

There's a sort of wooly headed duckiness about you. If I wasn't so crazy about Marmaduke, I could really marry you Bertie. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

I've seen it over the years, the more intellectual they are, the more work they don't want to do. You have to do both, you have to be able to put in the graft. ~ Bertie Ahern

Charlotte: Giordano is terribly afraid Gwyneth will get everything wrong tomorrow that she can get wrong.
Gideon: Pass the olive oil, please.
Charlotte: Politics and history are a closed book to Gwyneth. She can't even remember names - they go in at one ear and straight out of the other. She can't help it, her brain doesn't have the capacity. It's stuffed with the names of boy bands and long, long cast lists of actors in soppy romantic films.
Raphael: Gwyneth is your time-traveling cousin, right? I saw her yesterday in school. Isn't she the one with long dark hair and blue eyes?
Charlotte: Yes, and that birthmark on her temple, the one that looks like a little banana.
Gideon: Like a little crescent moon.
Raphael: What's that friend of hers called? The blonde with freckles? Lily?
Charlotte: Lesley Hay. Rather brighter than Gwyneth, but she's a wonderful example of the way people get to look like their dogs. Hers is a shaggy golden retriever crossbreed called Bertie.
Raphael: That's cute!
Charlotte: You like dogs?
Raphael: Especially golden retriever crossbreeds with freckles.
Charlotte: I see. Well, you can try your luck. You won't find it particularly difficult. Lesley gets through even more boys than Gwyneth.
Gideon: Really? How many . . . er, boyfriends has Gwyneth had?
Charlotte: Oh, my God! This is kind of embarrassing. I don't want to speak ill of her, it's just that she's not very discriminating. Particula ~ Kerstin Gier

...we often imagined, as we drove, a fictional universe in which Fitzgerald's and Wodehouse's creations might visit one another. Bertie Wooster and Jeeves might have intruded on the rarefied world of the Eggs, silly-ass Bertie stepping into sensible Nick Carraway's shoes, and Reginald Jeeves the fish-eating Spinoza-loving gentleman's gentleman and genius finding a way to give Jay Gatsby the happy-ever-after ending with Daisy Buchanan for which he so profoundly longed. ~ Salman Rushdie

People's character is their behaviour - we're all capable of good and evil. ~ Bertie Carvel

She is very wonderful, Bertie. She is not one of these flippant, shallow-minded, modern girls. She is sweetly grave and beautifully earnest. She reminds me of - what is the name I want?"
"Marie Lloyd?"
"Saint Cecilia," said young Bingo, eyeing me with a good deal of loathing. "She reminds me of Saint Cecilia. She makes me yearn to be a better, nobler, deeper, broader man. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Actors should avoid talking about their personal lives. ~ Bertie Carvel

I ordered another. If this was going to be a fish-story, I needed stimulants.
"On the liner going to New York I met a girl." Biffy made a sort of curious gulping noise not unlike a bulldog trying to swallow half a cutlet in a hurry so as to be ready for the other half. "Bertie, old man, I can't describe her. I simply can't describe her."
This was all to the good. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

A cupcake temple?' Her chest still tight with anxiety, Bertie forced herself to imagine it: bricks of pound cake mortared with buttercream and chocolate ganache, torches like striped birthday candles set into the walls, pilgrims upon the Path of Delectable Righteousness delivering daily tributes of almond paste and raspberry filling ... ~ Lisa Mantchev

Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, Chocolate Frogs, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum and Fizzing Whizzbees. There ~ J.K. Rowling

The most amazing thing you can ask for as an actor from a director is that you're being seen, that the choices made are informed. ~ Bertie Carvel

I suppose even Dictators have their chummy moments, when they put their feet up and relax with the boys, but it was plain from the outset that if Roderick Spode had a sunnier side, he had not come with any idea of exhibiting it now. His manner was curt. One sensed the absence of the bonhomous note.
...
Here he laid a hand on my shoulder, and I can't remember when I have experienced anything more unpleasant. Apart from what Jeeves would have called the symbolism of the action, he had a grip like the bite of a horse.
"Did you say 'Oh yes?'" he asked.
"Oh no," I assured him. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

I get so carried away in interviews and deliver 1,500-word treatises, then find it's been reduced to something pithier but also not quite accurate. Although I imagine there are people I work with who wish they could edit me every day. ~ Bertie Carvel

Bertie old man I say Bertie could you possibly come down here at once. Everything gone wrong hang it all. Dash it Bertie you simply must come. I am in a state of absolute despair and heart-broken. Would you mind sending another hundred of those cigarettes. Bring Jeeves when you come Bertie. You simply must come Bertie. I rely on you. Don't forget to bring Jeeves. Bingo.
For a chap who's perpetually hard-up, I must say that young Bingo is the most wasteful telegraphist I ever struck. He's got no notion of condensing. The silly ass simply pours out his wounded soul at twopence a word, or whatever it is, without a thought. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Women don't have a sense of humor," Bertie said. "They don't need one. The Almighty made them as a permanent joke on men. From which one may logically deduce that the Almighty is a female. ~ Loretta Chase

I'm sorry your evening has been spoilt; I hope Juffrouw van Doorn won't be too upset.'

'She will be livid,' he observed with calm. 'Drink your brandy, it will prevent you catching cold.' He leant over Bertie for a moment and listened to the dog's snores. 'He'll be all right now.'

Becky sipped her brandy, wrinkling her nose. 'This tastes very peculiar.'

Not a muscle of the Baron's face moved. He would hardly have described his best Napoleon brandy as peculiar. ~ Betty Neels

No buts, Bertie. If you don't keep your promise then you'll get into serious trouble. Big time. You could go to prison, and then what? And there's God too. God watches these things and if he sees you breaking promises he can really get you. He does it all the time. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

What on earth are you doing in Paris?" I asked.
"Bertie, old man," said Biffy solemnly, "I came here to try and forget."
"Well, you've certainly succeeded. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

This is a theater," Bertie, annoyed by the inquisition, dropped him onto stage. Several feet of slack cable landed atop the fairy in a slithering heap.
"Oh!" Peaseblossom said. "You've buried him alive! ~ Lisa Mantchev

[Aunt Dahlia to Bertie Wooster] 'To look at you, one would think you were just an ordinary sort of amiable idiot--certifiable, perhaps, but quite harmless. Yet, in reality, you are worse a scourge than the Black Death. I tell you, Bertie, when I contemplate you I seem to come up against all the underlying sorrow and horror of life with such a thud that I feel as if I had walked into a lamp post. I thought as much. Well, it needed but this. I don't see how things could possibly be worse than they are, but no doubt you will succeed in making them so. Your genius and insight will find the way. Carry on, Bertie. Yes, carry on. I am past caring now. I shall even find a faint interest in seeing into what darker and profounder abysses of hell you can plunge this home. Go to it, lad..I remember years ago, when you were in your cradle, being left alone with you one day and you nearly swallowed your rubber comforter and started turning purple. And I, ass that I was, took it out and saved your life. Let me tell you, young Bertie, it will go very hard with you if you ever swallow a rubber comforter again when only I am by to aid. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Some people dye their hair yellow or put rings in their noses ~ Bertie Ahern

The only reason I'm friends with any of you is because I outgrew the von Trapps, one annoying Austrian at a time. ~ Lisa Mantchev

I overthink everything. I'm very keen there should be a positive outcome. I like to control outcomes. But you can't. That's what is nice about being an actor, that you work really hard and it pays off. But at the end of the day, for it to be any good, you have to let go. I'd like to be better at this in life. ~ Bertie Carvel

When it comes to letting the world in on the secrets of his heart, he has about as much shrinking reticence as a steam calliope. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

('Why did you have children?' Bertie asked, later in their lives. 'Was it just the biological imperative to breed?' 'That's why everyone has children,' Viola said. 'They just dress it up as something more sentimental.') Viola ~ Kate Atkinson

I used to have a crow named Albert. Bertie, when I got to know him better. I got him when he was just a little guy and had him for years. A young crow doesn't navigate well and they'll sometimes crash-land. They're called branchers at that age-that's about all they can do, lumber awkwardly from branch to branch. Sometimes they get stuck and they wail like babies until you get 'em down. Bertie must have bitten off a bit more than he could chew and he'd tumbled to the ground. I had a cat named Little John who brought him in, squawking hellishly. LJ and I had a tussle to see who was going to take possession. Fortunately for Bertie, I won the contest. He and the cat became friends later, but it was touch-and-go for a while there. LJ was pissed off because he thought this was Thanksgiving dinner and I was getting in his way (Dietz) ~ Sue Grafton

Providence looks after all the chumps of this world, and personally, I'm all for it. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

A bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. "You want to be careful with those," Ron warned Harry. "When they say every flavor, they mean every flavor - you know, you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but then you can get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he had a booger-flavored one once."
Ron picked up a green bean, looked at it carefully, and bit into a corner.
"Bleaaargh - see? Sprouts. ~ J.K. Rowling

Bertie, do you read Tennyson?"

"Not if I can help. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

And with a massive roar the fifth wall comes down and the house of fiction falls, taking Viola and Sunny and Bertie with it. They melt into thin air and disappear. Pouf! ~ Kate Atkinson

I mean, imagine how some unfortunate Master Criminal would feel, on coming down to do a murder at the old Grange, if he found that not only was Sherlock Holmes putting in the weekend there, but Hercule Poirot, as well." ~ Bertram "Bertie" Wooster ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Bertie," he said, "I want your advice." "Carry on." "At least, not your advice, because that wouldn't be much good to anybody. I mean, you're a pretty consummate old [prat], aren't you? Not that I want to hurt your feelings, of course." "No, no, I see that." "What I wish you to do is put the whole thing to that fellow Jeeves of yours, and see what he suggests. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

I say Bertie old man I am in love at last. She is the most wonderful girl Bertie old man. This is the real thing at last Bertie. Come here at once and bring Jeeves. Oh I say you know that tobacco shop in Bond Street on the left side as you go up. Will you get me a hundred of their special cigarettes and send them to me here. I have run out. I know when you see her you will think she is the most wonderful girl. Mind you bring Jeeves. Don't forget the cigarettes. - Bingo. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

You see I'm wearing the tie," said Bingo.
"It suits you beautiful," said the girl.
Personally, if anyone had told me that a tie like that suited me, I should have risen and struck them on the mazzard, regardless of their age and sex; but poor old Bingo simply got all flustered with gratification, and smirked in the most gruesome manner.
"Well, what's it going to be today?" asked the girl, introducing the business touch into the conversation.
Bingo studied the menu devoutly.
"I'll have a cup of cocoa, cold veal and ham pie, slice of fruit cake, and a macaroon. Same for you, Bertie?"
I gazed at the man, revolted. That he could have been a pal of mine all these years and think me capable of insulting the old tum with this sort of stuff cut me to the quick.
"Or how about a bit of hot steak-pudding, with a sparkling limado to wash it down?" said Bingo.
You know, the way love can change a fellow is really frightful to contemplate. This chappie before me, who spoke in that absolutely careless way of macaroons and limado, was the man I had seen in happier days telling the head-waiter at Claridge's exactly how he wanted the chef to prepare the sole frite au gourmet au champignons, and saying he would jolly well sling it back if it wasn't just right. Ghastly! Ghastly!
A roll and butter and a small coffee seemed the only things on the list that hadn't been specially prepared by the nastier-minded members of the Borgia family for people they h ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Look here, Mrs. Bradley," he said. "I feel a pretty frightful bounder telling you all this about the poor girl, but I think some woman ought to know about it. On Wednesday night, yes, last night, Eleanor came into my bedroom at about half-past twelve and--and wanted to stay there! I thought it was a ghost at first. I had terrible difficulty in getting rid of her. In fact, I had to get out of bed and shove her outside and lock the door. Choice, isn't it?"
...
"Of course you will lock your door tonight," she said.
"You bet I shall," Bertie said fervently, "and nothing short of the house catching fire is going to persuade me to open it. ~ Gladys Mitchell

I've always been infuriated by Bertie, I have to say. I never appreciated his style of politics. I thought it was very superficial, running around the country opening crisp packets, as they say, never really engaging with the substance of what was being debated and it clearly had a hugely negative impact on this country. ~ Lucinda Creighton