I turned on the pillow with a little moan, and at this juncture Jeeves entered with the vital oolong. I clutched at it like a drowning man at a straw hat.
P. G. WodehouseRead
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.
Interpretation
The quote humorously suggests that cats carry an air of superiority due to their historical reverence in ancient Egypt.
P. G. Wodehouse cleverly comments on the personality traits of cats, connecting their aloofness and critical demeanor to their status as revered beings in ancient Egypt. This playful observation highlights how such a background may lead cats to view themselves as somewhat superior to humans, critiquing our flaws with an air of entitlement.
In practice
In a humorous speech about pets and their personalities, you might use this quote to illustrate the cat's unique behavior.
I turned on the pillow with a little moan, and at this juncture Jeeves entered with the vital oolong. I clutched at it like a drowning man at a straw hat.
While not exactly disgruntled, he was far from feeling gruntled. He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.
She fitted into my biggest arm-chair as if it had been built round her by someone who knew they were wearing arm-chairs tight about the hips that season
It was a nasty look. It made me feel as if I were something the dog had brought in and intended to bury later on, when he had time.
Memories are like mulligatawny soup in a cheap restaurant. It is wiser not to stir them.
It was a confusion of ideas between him and one of the lions he was hunting in Kenya that had caused A. B. Spottsworth to make the obituary column. He thought the lion was dead, and the lion thought it wasn't.
Inviting people to laugh with you while you are laughing at yourself is a good thing to do. You may be a fool but you're the fool in charge.
Some people have such a talent for making the best of a bad situation that they go around creating bad situations so they can make the best of them.
I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it
President Bush has embarked on an eight-day tour of the continent. He hopes this one goes better than the other ones he's made recently. Obviously he's not doing that well in North America [on screen: '36% Approval'], his South American trip had a few bumps [on screen: 'Angry mobs of torch-carrying bumps'], Europe seems to think the president doesn't care what they think, but hey, who cares what they think? They could at least thank him for what he's done for their burning effigy industry.
Almost every comedy you see is about people making all wrong choices and making all the errors of judgement possible. Good comedy is when it works on this scale. Because it is psychologically very real.
There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.