Judith Martin Quotes

Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split.

Though shyness per se was unacceptable, reserve was a mark of good breeding.

Etiquette can be at the same time a means of approaching people and of staying clear of them.

I was raised right — I talk about people behind their backs. It's called manners.

Familiarity is a suspension of almost all the laws of civility, which libertinism has introduced into society under the notion of ease.

I was woefully ignorant in the social graces. I was being raised, after all, by Pellinore Warthrop.

Insofar as he'd formed any opinion of her, it was that she suffered from misplaced gentility and the mistaken belief that etiquette meant good breeding. She mistook mannerisms for manners.

Yes, but also one of the problems for a novelist in Ireland is the fact that there are no formal manners. I mean some people have beautiful manners but there's no kind of agreed form of manners.

Don't ever take a seven-year-old with you to a campaign dinner - they will embarrass you no end.

Custom has made dancing sometimes necessary for a young man; therefore mind it while you learn it, that you may learn to do it well, and not be ridiculous, though in a ridiculous act.

The whole art of flirting has simply disappeared. This probably will do further damage. If we're going to become so uptight that we can't say nice things to each other, then we've had it!

For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it.

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.

Manners are just a formal expression of how you treat people.

Now, it is well known, that a man may with more impunity be guilty of an actual breach either of real good breeding or of good morals, than appear ignorant of the most minute point of fashionable etiquette.

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.

The man who thrusts his manners upon me does as if he were to insist on introducing me to his cabinet of curiosities, when I wished to see himself.

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.

You can deny all you want that there is etiquette, and a lot of people do in everyday life. But if you behave in a way that offends the people you're trying to deal with, they will stop dealing with you...There are plenty of people who say, 'We don't care about etiquette, but we can't stand the way so-and-so behaves, and we don't want him around!' Etiquette doesn't have the great sanctions that the law has. But the main sanction we do have is in not dealing with these people and isolating them because their behavior is unbearable.

"Sorry," she said, "I got out as fast as I could, but I had to stay and socialize. Protocol, you know." "Explain protocol," Nell said. This was how she always talked to the Primer. "At the place we’re going, you need to watch your manners. Don’t say 'explain this' or 'explain that.'" "Would it impose on your time unduly to provide me with a concise explanation of the term protocol?" Nell said. Again Rita made that nervous laugh and looked at Nell with an expression that looked like poorly concealed alarm.

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

That bad manners are so prevalent in the world is the fault of good manners.

Manners are very communicable: men catch them from each other.

Decorum -- that bug-bear which deters so many from bliss until the opportunity for bliss has forever gone by.

The wisest and best are repulsive, if they are characterized by repulsive manners. Politeness is an easy virtue, costs little, and has great purchasing power.