For in a literary career there was one unfailing advantage: No degree whatever of moral or social disgrace could disqualify one from practice - and indeed a bad character, if suitably tricked out for presentation, might win one helpful publicity.

Psmith is the only thing in my literary career which was handed to me on a plate with watercress round it, thus enabling me to avoid the blood, sweat and tears inseparable from an author's life.

And so, at the age of thirty, I had successively disgraced myself with three fine institutions, each of which had made me free of its full and rich resources, had trained me with skill and patience, and had shown me nothing but forbearance and charity when I failed in trust.

Whereas the gentleman always seeks to deserve his position, the aristocrat, disdainful and insouciant, is quite happy just to exploit it.

Scholarship was one thing, drudgery another. I very soon concluded that nothing would induce me to read, let alone make notes on, hundreds and hundreds of very, very, very boring books.

The great break of my literary career was going to law school.