Jean Webster Quotes

You learn, just as you learn good manners, how to approach things with a certain amount of diplomacy.

When it comes to knowing what to say, to charm, I always had it.

It's not so much knowing when to speak, when to pause.

Diplomacy is to do and say the nastiest things in the nicest way.

Discretion of speech is more than eloquence, and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words, or in good order.

Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts.

If you think before you speak the other guy gets his joke in first.

I was really a charmer; I was the guy who would get to the office, the principal would sit me down and within 10 minutes, we'd be, like, talking about some movies or something.

Without tact you can learn nothing.

Much speech is one thing, well-timed speech is another.

One of my strengths is my ability to talk and communicate with people.

I haven't much opinion of words. They're apt to set fire to a dry tongue, that's what I say.

No one will ever shine in conversation, who thinks of saying fine things: to please, one must say many things indifferent, and many very bad.

That's all small talk is - a quick way to connect on a human level - which is why it is by no means as irrelevant as the people who are bad at it insist. In short, it's worth making the effort.

You can put my dad in any situation and he's going to figure it out. He's going to figure the people out and how to get along, how to make everyone comfortable.

Can I be blunt? Yes. Can I be diplomatic? Yes. Can I concoct a mixture of vinegar and honey when the circumstances warrant? Yes.

Tact is one of the first of mental virtues, the absence of which is frequently fatal to the best of talents. Without denying that it is a talent of itself, it will suffice if we admit that it supplies the place of many talents.

Tact, if it be genuine, never sleeps.

Silence is one great art of conversation. He is not a fool who knows when to hold his tongue; and a person may gain credit for sense, eloquence, wit, who merely says nothing to lessen the opinion which others have of these qualities in themselves.

In nothing do we fail more, as a Mission, than in lack of tact and politeness.

Tact, the kind of tact you should cultivate, is not a form of deception or make-believe, but a cultivated taste which gives fine perception in seeing and doing what is best under all circumstances. There is nothing which will so readily bring you into favor, or disarm an opponent, as the right use of tact.

Manners are a way of getting what you want without appearing to be an absolute swine.

The eloquence of one stimulates all the rest, some up to the speaking-point, and all others to a degree that makes them good receivers and conductors, and they avenge themselves for their enforced silence by increased loquacity on their return.

Use a sweet tongue, courtesy, and gentleness, and thou mayest manage to guide an elephant by a hair.

Butler compared the tongues of these eternal talkers to race-horses, which go the faster the less weight they carry.