Dining Manners Quotes

Don't touch my napkin. I do not want the server to pick up the napkin and put it on my lap. I know it belongs there; maybe I don't choose to put it there.

No rule of etiquette is of less importance than which fork we use.

I’d discovered, after a lot of extreme apprehension about what spoons to use, that if you do something incorrect at table with a certain arrogance, as if you knew perfectly well you were doing it properly, you can get away with it and nobody will think you are bad-mannered or poorly brought up. They will think you are original and very witty.

Never make eye contact with anyone while eating a banana

My notion of an elegant table is you don't leave the knife sticking out of the mayonnaise jar.

Ther's no great banquet but some fares ill.

One of the rudest things you can do, food-wise, is to stare at someone in the act of eating. It draws attention to the unseemly fact that eating is a bodily function - like animals, we are trapped by our hungers, but we do our best to disguise them with such civilized props as menus and forks.

At home, we're listening to TV or playing with our computers, so our entertaining is rusting. We don't know how to be good hosts and guests in business situations.

I don't answer my phone in a restaurant.