Brian P. Cleary Quotes

This laudable quality is commonly known by the name of Manners and Good-breeding, and consists in a Fashionable Habit, acquir'd by Precept and Example, of flattering the Pride and Selfishness of others, and concealing our own with Judgment and Dexterity.

The shoe is very much an X-ray of social comportment.

I know that's a secret, for it's whispered everywhere.

Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.

Lots of English people say exactly the opposite of what they mean.

Euphemism is a euphemism for lying.

I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species.

Gossip. The more you talk about why people do things, the more ideas you have about how the world works.

If you discuss other people, words get twisted; things get turned around.

When it comes to gossip, I have to readily admit men are as guilty as women.

We tell only part of a man's qualities in his presence, and all of them when he is not present.

I can remember being fascinated by what people really thought about each other and what they were really doing to each other behind people's backs.

Gossip is what you say about the objects of flattery when they aren't present.

When I was dealing with a lot of Iraqis, lies were constant; people constantly lied to you. It's a part of their culture. They wanted to please you so much, they were willing to lie to you to please you.

I'm always interested in how people use language to not say what they mean.

There are different groups of people in your life that you behave slightly differently with. You behave one way with your family. You behave in a different way with your work colleagues. You behave differently with your friends from the movie club, your fitness instructor - all subtly different personas.

All animals communicate. What's special about gossip is that it's not about the here and now. You don't gossip about lions. You don't gossip about clouds. You only gossip about other people. And once you do, you can keep track of many more people - this is the basis for forming larger communities.

At the end of the day, people like drama - if everything is great, no one wants to hear about that.

Technically, of course, he was right. Socially, he was annoying us.

Gossip is the social mosquito.

If we all said to people's faces what we say behind one another's backs, society would be impossible.

The British capitalize on their accent when they don't want you to know what they're saying. But if you wake them up at 4 A.M., they speak perfect English, the same as we do.

Every small group has at least one 'difficult' person in it. If you don't immediately recognize who that person is -- it's probably you!

I would rather be seated between any two women than any two men at a dinner party.

We do what we must, and call it by the best names.