Ayelet Waldman Quotes

Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.

When in company, put not your hands to any part of the body, not usually discovered.

But in my book, it was basically bad taste to stare at someone's assets, no matter how much on display they were.

In England, we have such good manners that if someone says something impolite, the police will get involved.

A gentleman never talks about his tailor.

People don't know how to behave in public anymore.

We must watch over our modesty in the presence of those who cannot understand its grounds.

I have a respect for manners as such, they are a way of dealing with people you don't agree with or like.

You can't be truly rude until you understand good manners.

We don't have spittoons on street corners any more. It's no longer acceptable to spit on the street.

A laugh, if purchased at the expense of propriety, costs too much.

The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness.

If we want to live freely and privately in the interconnected world of the twenty-first century - and surely we do - perhaps above all we need a revival of the small-town civility of the nineteenth century. Manners, not devices: sometimes it's just better not to ask, and better not to look.

No gentleman ever discusses any relationship with a lady.

The bed is now as public as the dinner table and governed by the same rules of formal confrontation.

There used to be an art form called the 'comedy of manners.' Why aren't comedies of manners made now in this country? The answer is simple. We no longer have manners to speak of.

People have no concept of boundaries.

Politeness is sometimes a great tax upon sincerity.

Perhaps the summary of good-breeding may be reduced to this rule. "Behave unto all men as you would they should behave unto you." This will most certainly oblige us to treat all mankind with the utmost civility and respect, there being nothing that we desire more than to be treated so by them.

Never ask a man where he has been.

If it be ungentlemanly to kiss and tell, it is still further from gentlemanliness to pray and tell.

Never listen to a phone call that isn't meant for you. Never read a letter that isn't meant for you. Never pay attention to a comment that isn't meant for you. Never violate people's privacy. You will save yourself a lot of anguish.

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

Good manners, to those one does not love, are no more a breach of truth, than "your humble servant," at the bottom of a challengeis; they are universally agreed upon, and understand to be things of course. They are necessary guards of the decency and peace of society.

Good manners require space and time.