Gail Carriger Quotes

He who reflects on another man's want of breeding, shows he wants it as much himself

The etiquette question that troubles so many fastidious people New Year's Day is: How am I ever going to face those people again?

His Grace was at her side, and lifted her down from the chair. "My enfant," he said , "duchesses do not dance on chairs, nor do they call their brothers 'imbécile'." Léonie's twinkled irrepressibly. "I do," she said firmly.

Insofar as he'd formed any opinion of her, it was that she suffered from misplaced gentility and the mistaken belief that etiquette meant good breeding. She mistook mannerisms for manners.

Lyall had spent centuries nibbling about the great layered cake that was polite society while Lord Akeldama acted the part of the frosting on its top.

Lady Bracknell. Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well. Algernon. I’m feeling very well, Aunt Augusta. Lady Bracknell. That’s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together.

Courtly manners are contagious; they are caught at Versailles.

Racist people, interestingly, are never as polite as smokers. Have you noticed that? Smokers always go, "Do you mind if I smoke? Oh, you do? Okay, I'll go outside and have a cigarette."

The gentleman will sit! The gentleman is correct in sitting!

It is helpful to know the proper way to behave, so one can decide whether or not to be proper.

Speak in French when you can't think of the English for a thing. Turn out your toes as you walk. And remember who you are!

The best manners are stained by haughtiness.

Lack of manners is the sign of a hero.

Let's all commit ourselves to the basic civility of minding our own business. Failing that, let's go back to a time when we were nasty and judgmental, but only behind one another's backs.

What was created by the era of the proper gentleman was excellent table manners and genocide over most of the surface of the planet.

Ellen Cherry was from the south and had good manners. She didn´t have any panties on, but she had good manners.

There are always proper responses, even to rude questions.

The politer the society, the greater the lies it requires.

Basil Stag Hare tut-tutted severely as he remarked to Ambrose Spike, 'Tch, tch. Dreadful table manners. Just look at those three wallahs, kicking up a hullaballoo like that! Eating's a serious business.

Etiquette has no regard for moral qualities.

They [the English] have a special word, "civil," for what is elsewhere merely ordinary politeness.

Have you ever known me to be rude to a lady?" "I have seen you be intentionally rude to a woman. I have never seen you be rude to a lady.

Manners are the happy ways of doing things.

Emily Post says that talking about oneself isn't very polite.' 'I'm sure Miss Post is perfectly correct, but that doesn't seem to stop the rest of us.

Decorum -- that bug-bear which deters so many from bliss until the opportunity for bliss has forever gone by.