Judith Martin
A lot of men got upset at the feminist movement because they had all the toys and we wanted some.Collection: Men
The etiquette of intimacy is very different from the etiquette of formality, but manners are not just something to show off to the outside world. If you offend the head waiter, you can always go to another restaurant. If you offend the person you live with, it's very cumbersome to switch to a different family.Collection: Family
The challenge of manners is not so much to be nice to someone whose favor and/or person you covet (although more people need to be reminded of that necessity than one would suppose) as to be exposed to the bad manners of others without imitating them.Collection: Nice
Washington knows that it is not safe to kick people who are down until you find out what their next stop will be.Collection: People
Protocol is etiquette with a government expense account.Collection: Government
The etiquette question that troubles so many fastidious people New Year's Day is: How am I ever going to face those people again?Collection: New Year
It doesn't matter whether the bride or the bridegroom writes the letters of thanks for wedding presents provided that these go out immediately after the arrival of each present and are not in the handwriting of the bride's mother.Collection: Mother
Knowing that others have gone through similar tragedies may be a help, but it should be remembered that every tragedy is not only commonplace but also unique.Collection: Unique
You don't want to look too chic at a Washington party or people will think you don't have a job worth losing.Collection: Jobs
The invention of the teenager was a mistake. Once you identify a period of life in which people get to stay out late but don't have to pay taxes - naturally, no one wants to live any other way.Collection: Inspirational
When someone has tried to please you, it is rude, as well as disheartening, to respond by announcing that the effort was a failure.Collection: Women
Whamming someone smaller than oneself in order to teach that person civilized behavior is not within Miss Manners' concept of propriety, much less logic.Collection: Order
The simple idea that everyone needs a reasonable amount of challenging work in his or her life, and also a personal life, complete with noncompetitive leisure, has never really taken hold.Collection: Inspirational
Precision marching is less important for the bridal party than maintaining the proper facial expresssions: The bridegroom must look awed; the bridesmaids, happy and excited; the father of the bride, proud; and the bride, demure. If the bridegroom feels doubtful, the bridesmaids, sulky, the father, worried, and the bride, blasé, nobody wants to know.Collection: Father
I have always believed that the key to a happy marriage was the ability to say with a straight face, 'Why, I don't know what you're worrying about. I thought you were very funny last night and I'm sure everybody else did, too.Collection: Night
Meanwhile, the empty forms of social behavior survive inappropriately in business situations. We all know that when a business sends its customers 'friendly reminders,' it really means business.Collection: Mean
We have the reverse of the Puritan work ethic in America now. No one ever becomes a star by plugging along year after year. What is needed is flair, talent, 'an eye,' contacts, charisma, and, most of all, naturalness.Collection: Stars
Nowadays, you form your beliefs to fit your behavior, not the other way around.Collection: Way
Question- Should I loan a small amount of money to a friend? Answer- If you are sure that you can, if necessary, spare both.Collection: Women
Sometimes we do things a certain way just because that is the way we do things.Collection: Women
She only maintains that it is possible, under some circumstances, for a lady to murder her husband; but that a woman who wears ankle-strap shoes and smokes on the street corner, though she may be a joy to all who know her and have devoted her life to charity, could never qualify as a lady.Collection: Husband
The most conventional statements are both true and welcome.Collection: Women
The stress of making small talk with in-laws is called being part of a family.Collection: Stress
many of the guests will eventually leave the table to watch football on television, which would be a rudeness at any other occasion but is a relief at Thanksgiving and probably the only way to get those people to budge.Collection: Thanksgiving
Nobody believes that the man who says, 'Look, lady, you wanted equality,' to explain why he won't give up his seat to a pregnant woman carrying three grocery bags, a briefcase, and a toddler is seized with the symbolism of idealism.Collection: Giving Up
the obligation to express gratitude deepens with procrastination. The longer you wait, the more effusive must be the thanks.Collection: Gratitude
A general rule of etiquette is that one apologizes for the unfortunate occurrence, but the unthinkable is unmentionable.Collection: Apology
What is Thanksgiving without a nutty relative?Collection: Women
Etiquette is about all of human social behavior. Behavior is regulated by law when etiquette breaks down or when the stakes are high - violations of life, limb, property and so on. Barring that, etiquette is a little social contract we make that we will restrain some of our more provocative impulses in return for living more or less harmoniously in a community.Collection: Law
There are always proper responses, even to rude questions.Collection: Women
What we have come to, through a combination of popular psychology and expanding technology, is a presumption that all our thoughts and feelings are worth uttering.Collection: Women
People say when you're in love, you don't need etiquette. Well, you need it then more than anything. Or they say, "At home I can just be myself." What they mean is they can be their worst selves... They always mean they will save all their anxiety about how to behave for somebody like the head waiter of a restaurant, someone they'll never see again.Collection: Love You
People who put slipcovers, doilies, plastic protectors, and cellophane on everything good that they own rarely live to see an occasion so good that all these covers are removed.Collection: People
Everybody's an art critic.Collection: Art
Try not to annoy your relatives unnecessarily.Collection: Women
Only a person who considers himself too good for you is good enough.Collection: Good Enough
it's no longer socially acceptable to make bigoted statements and racist remarks. Some people are having an awful time with that: 'I didn't know anybody would be offended!' Well, where have you been? I remember when people got away with it and they don't anymore. That's fabulous.Collection: People
Greece is a good place for rebirths.Collection: Rebirth
It is said that dispensing advice is easy. What is difficult is getting anyone to listen to it.Collection: Advice
A wedding invitation is sent by people who have been saying, "Do we have to ask them?" to people whose first response is, "How much do you think we have to spend on them?Collection: Thinking
Visiting the sick is supposed to exhibit such great virtue that there are some people determined to do it whether the sick like it or not. ... All visitors everywhere are supposed to make plans to depart if they observe their hosts visibly wilting or in pain, but this is especially true at hospitals.Collection: Pain
People will say, 'Seventy isn't old, it's middle-aged,' and I think, middle of what - 140?Collection: Thinking
The one prediction that never comes true is, 'You'll thank me for telling you this.Collection: Predictions
The truly essential bargain between host and guest requires the guest only to respond promptly, show up on time, socialize with other guests, thank the host, write additional thanks and reciprocate. You needn't bring anything.Collection: Women
Fairness does not consist so much of everybody's doing the same thing, but of everybody's being willing to do something that others don't want to do.Collection: Doe
It has always puzzled me, in my business, that people think they have to answer questions, no matter how disagreeable or dangerous, just because they were asked. Of course, we journalists would be out of business if they didn't.Collection: Thinking
What restricts the use of the word 'lady' among the courteous is that it is intended to set a woman apart from ordinary humanity, and in the working world that is not a help, as women have discovered in many bitter ways.Collection: Humanity
people, in forming their opinions of others, are usually lazy enough to go by whatever is most obvious or whatever chance remark they happen to hear. So the best policy is to dictate to others the opinion you want them to have of you.Collection: People
The more skillful the performance of false cheer, the more pleasing the effect is upon one's public and on that private audience to whom one owes even more.Collection: Cheer