Daniel Handler Quotes

If people ask me, I always tell them: "Quite well, thank you, I'm very glad to say." If people ask me, I always answer, "Quite well, thank you, how are you today?" I always answer, I always tell them, If they ask me Politely... BUT SOMETIMES I wish That they wouldn't

When politeness is used to show up other people, it is reclassified as rudeness. Thus it is technically impossible to be too polite.

He was so generally civil, that nobody thanked him for it.

I have seen people rude by being over-polite.

People say that you always have to tell the truth. But they do not mean this because you are not allowed to tell old people that they are old and you are not allowed to tell people if they smell funny or if a grown-up has made a fart. And you are not allowed to say, 'I don't like you,' unless that person has been horrible to you.

Was it the forgetfulness of old age or personal incapacity that made the man able to say please but not thank you?

I don't mean to be rude—" he began, in a tone that threatened rudeness in every syllable. "Yet, sadly, accidental rudeness occurs alarmingly often," Dumbledore finished the sentence gravely.

...William wondered why he always disliked people who said 'no offense meant.' Maybe it was because they found it easier to to say 'no offense meant' than actually to refrain from giving offense.

People give out compliments because it's polite.

Thanking people is dangerous business. A name always slips your mind.

Courtesy is fine and heaven knows we need more and more of it in a rude and frenetic world, but mechanized courtesy is as pallid as Pablum ... in fact, it isn't even courtesy.

You're never rude,' she said, smiling, 'and I think it's good to be touchy sometimes. It means you care.

I find it very eerie when somebody is being really polite.

I respect the social graces enormously. How to pass the food. Don't yell from one room to another. Don't go through a closed door without a knock. Open the doors for the ladies. All these millions of simple household behaviors make for a better life. We can't live in constant rebellion against our parents - it's just silly. I'm very well mannered. It's not an abstract thing. It's a shared language of expectations.

Nine times out of 10, the most charming thing to say in any given situation will be the exact opposite of what one really feels.

A man has no more right to say an uncivil thing than to act one; no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down.

When people complain of the decay of manners they have in mind not the impudent abbreviations of the crowd, but the decline in bowing and scraping and in speaking of one's employer as "the master." What the rich mean by the good manners of the poor is usually not civility, but servility.

Politeness is deception in pretty packaging.

If it were not for quotations, conversations between gentlemen would consist of an endless series of 'what-ho!'s.

Good company requires only birth, education, and manners, and with regard to education is not very nice. Birth and good manners are essential; but a little learning is by no means a dangerous thing in good company; on the contrary, it will do very well.

I only mean forty per cent of what I say.

Do you dance, Mr. Darcy?" Darcy: "Not if I can help it!" Sir William: "What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! There is nothing like dancing, after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies." Mr. Darcy: "Certainly, sir; and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst the less polished societies of the world; every savage can dance.

How clever you are, my dear! You never mean a single word you say.

A well-bred youth neither speakes of himselfe, nor being spoken to is silent.

Stop saying no offense,” I said, “when you say offensive things. It’s not a free pass.