Eoin Colfer Quotes

People think, mistakenly, that etiquette means you have to suppress your differences. On the contray, etiquette is what enables you to deal with them; it gives you a set of rules.

I was expected to sit at the table, learn how to eat properly.

My mother had all these maxims - like, classy girls never chew gum, never read comic books, never get their ears pierced, never get their hair dyed.

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

A hat should be taken off when you greet a lady and left off for the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat.

I am a journalist in the field of etiquette. I try to find out what the most genteel people regularly do, what traditions they have discarded, what compromises they have made.

Wearing the correct dress for any occasion is a matter of good manners.

Formalized rules of manners were so great because they left no room for basic human haplessness. They allowed us to circumvent our natural boorish tendency to disregard the feelings of others.

The etiquette question has become of so much importance as to be an object of state.

Just because you can say things that are uncivil does not mean that your should say things that are uncivil.

It's not polite to refuse to dress for a parly. It's an insult to your hostess. After all, correct dress is a part of good manners.

More faults are often committed while we are trying to oblige than while we are giving offense.

Truly good manners are invisible: they ease the way for others, without drawing attention to themselves. It is no accident that the word "punctilious" ("attentive to formality or etiquette") comes from the same original root as punctuation.

Little miss is taught by her mamma that she must never speak before she is spoken to. On this she sits bridling up her head, looking from one to the other, in hopes of being called to and addressed by the name of pretty miss.... But if this should not happen and no one should take any notice of her, she is ready to cry at the neglect. But should there be another miss in the room caressed and taken notice of whilst she is thus overlooked, it will be impossible for her to contain her tears, and blubbering is the word.

The basic meaning of etiquette is to be quick at both the beginning and end and tranquil in the middle.

To dismiss a guest is a more ungracious act than not to admit him at all.

All children in the '50s were taught manners, they were taught to say please and thank you, they were taught not to be rude. And I'm seeing some problems today where somebody's losing a job because they made fun of a fat lady that couldn't fit in the elevator. I mean that was the sort of thing that, when I was eight years old, my mother made it very clear to me that that was not okay to say that kind of stuff.

Etiquette requires the presumption of good until the contrary is proved.

To sacrifice the principles of manners, which require compassion and respect, and bat people over the head with their ignorance of etiquette rules they cannot be expected to know is both bad manners and poor etiquette. That social climbers and twits have misused etiquette throughout history should not be used as an argument for doing away with it.

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.

A certain degree of ceremony is a necessary outwork of manners, as well as of religion; it keeps the forward and petulant at a proper distance, and is a very small restraint to the sensible and to the well-bred part of the world.

If it's against state law, it's generally considered a breach of Etiquette.

There are always proper responses, even to rude questions.

Shame is the proper reaction when one has purposefully violated the accepted behavior of society. Inflicting it is etiquette's response when its rules are disobeyed. The law has all kinds of nasty ways of retaliating when it is disregarded, but etiquette has only a sense of social shame to deter people from treating others in ways they know are wrong. So naturally Miss Manners wants to maintain the sense of shame. Some forms of discomfort are fully justified, and the person who feels shame ought to be dealing with removing its causes rather than seeking to relieve the symptoms.

Etiquette has no regard for moral qualities.