Paula Poundstone Quotes

Don’t knock on any random door like a beggar. Reach your long hand out to another door, beyond where you go on the street, the street where everyone says, "How are you?" and no one says How aren’t you?

You have to realise that touching is a real violation of personal space.

I have a story here, and it dovetails with this. You won't believe this. At Ohio State, the Ohio State University, you have to know the rules before you decide to kiss somebody. Both sides have to know the rules. Not kidding.

It's all right for a perfect stranger to kiss your hand as long as he's perfect.

I'm not extra sensitive to handshakes. I shake hands all the time.

I can't hit on women in public any more. I didn't decide this; it just doesn't feel right at my age.

As a human being, you know that there are some days when you'd rather not talk to anybody - but I can't really do that anymore without appearing rude.

I'm more the sort of person who doesn't like hugging strangers because we don't know each other, so we shouldn't.

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.

Never ask a woman if you may kiss her. Instead, learn to read body language.

I was brought up with considerable discipline, and I was taught it wasn't proper to display certain very private emotions in public.

I never cake someone who doesn't want to be caked - at least, I try not to. Sometimes I miss my target. I'm pretty much going through the crowd making sure I find someone who wants to get caked. If you don't want to get caked, shake your head or tell me you don't want to get caked. It's that easy.

American life is based on a reassurance that we like one another but won't violate one another's privacies. This makes it a land of small talk.

Privacy is not really a concept in Japan.

I don't mind it. My friends think it's kind of rude of the people to come up to me and treat me like an object.

There would be some times where people wouldn't know how to act around me. Does he drink? Can I cuss? What can I do? And then there was other circumstances where it was, I just don't respect what you're trying to do.

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

If you don't like someone, don't shake their hand.

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

As his hands moved to his trousers, he saw that she was pulling the bedsheets over her. "Don't," he said, barely recognizing his own voice. Her eyes met his, and he said, "I'll be your blanket".

Ergo: girls should always make the first move, because (a) they are, on the whole, less likely to be rejected than guys, (b) that way, girls will never get kissed unless they want to be kissed.

I'd learned a long time ago that one of the finest weapons in my arsenal was my ability to invade personal space

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.

I went up to Meryl Streetp and said 'I love you so much I want to tongue kiss you' And she said 'OK'.

I should’ve been very cross with Anubis. Kissing me without permission—the nerve!