S. J. Perelman Quotes

I'm trying to be more of a gentleman.

I almost felt that I should offer to serve coffee.

There is such a thing as too much couth.

Everyone can be rude, and everyone can be kind.

I'm not disrespectful to anybody that I'm cool with.

I always open doors for women. It's just good manners.

I've always been a respectful kind of guy.

When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.

Please don't stand up on my account.

I read all the books I could find about manners, and the extraordinary thing was, in all books up to the end of the Second World War, most were directed at how to comport yourself in the presence of the ladies.

Courtesy is not dead - it has merely taken refuge in Great Britain.

You can choose to be civil or not be civil. What is the point of going through the day and think it's cool to wear your honesty on your sleeve at the expense of everyone around you?

One of the keys to our present definition of good taste is that it is better to be kind than to be 'correct.' There is no situation in which it is smart to be nasty.

To dispense with ceremony is the most delicate mode of conferring a compliment.

Society' in America means all the honest, kindly-mannered, pleasant- voiced women, and all the good, brave, unassuming men, between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Each of these has a free pass in every city and village, 'good for this generation only,' and it depends on each to make use of this pass or not as it may happen to suit his or her fancy.

Etiquette is the grease that makes it possible for all of us to rub together without unnecessary overheating.

I do have traditional values: I believe in being a good person and being polite.

Etiquette has no regard for moral qualities.

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

I have heard women complain about men holding doors for them,, as if it is inherently offensive and implies that they are weak. ... I would hold a door for anyone. ... It has to do with noticing our fellow human beings and saying, "I recognize that you're on this planet, and I don't want a door hitting you in the face.

It's so silly not to be nice.

His courtesy was somewhat extravagant. He would write and thank people who wrote to thank him for wedding presents and when he encountered anyone as punctilious as himself the correspondence ended only with death.

We must recall the most important of humanity guidelines: Be polite. Being polite is possibly the greatest daily contribution everyone can make to life on Earth.

Please, Lord Maccon, use one of the cups. My delicate sensibilities.” The earl actually snorted. “My dear Miss Tarabotti, if you possessed any such things, you certainly have never shown them to me.

One is not born English without knowing how to converse easily about the weather.