Judith Martin Quotations

The greater the controversy, the more you need manners.

Etiquette does not render you defenseless. If it did, even I wouldn't subscribe to it. But rudeness in retaliation for rudeness just doubles the amount of rudeness in the world.

I make a distinction between manners and etiquette - manners as the principles, which are eternal and universal, etiquette as the particular rules which are arbitrary and different in different times, different situations, different cultures.

For email, the old postcard rule applies. Nobody else is supposed to read your postcards, but you'd be a fool if you wrote anything private on one.

Learn graceful ways of saying no and of pointing out that this pressure to do something is not in line with most people's wishes.

Etiquette is all human social behavior. If you're a hermit on a mountain, you don't have to worry about etiquette; if somebody comes up the mountain, then you've got a problem. It matters because we want to live in reasonably harmonious communities.

Freedom without rules doesn't work. And communities do not work unless they are regulated by etiquette.

'Honesty' in social life is often used as a cover for rudeness. But there is quite a difference between being candid in what you're talking about, and people voicing their insulting opinions under the name of honesty.

When people start hurling insults at you, you know their minds are closed and there's no point in debating. You disengage yourself as quickly as possible from the situation.

Email is very informal, a memo. But I find that not signing off or not having a salutation bothers me.

It's far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.

We're now seeing email that people thought they had deleted showing up as evidence in court. You can't erase email. As that becomes more commonly realized, people will be a little wiser about what they type.

We already know that anonymous letters are despicable. In etiquette, as well as in law, hiring a hit man to do the job does not relieve you of responsibility.

You glance at an e-mail. You give more attention to a real letter.

When a society abandons its ideals just because most people can't live up to them, behavior gets very ugly indeed.

One of the big no-nos in cyberspace is that you do not go into a social activity, a chat group or something like that, and start advertising or selling things. This etiquette rule is an attempt to separate one's social life, which should be pure enjoyment and relaxation, from the pressures of work.

You do not have to do everything disagreeable that you have a right to do

Presents are symbolic. When you give them in your personal life, they should show that you are paying attention to the person to whom you're giving them.

Many people mistakenly think a new technology cancels out an old one.

Indeed, Miss Manners has come to believe that the basic political division in this country is not between liberals and conservatives but between those who believe that they should have a say in the love lives of strangers and those who do not

The mistake people keep making is that if they find a wonderful new tool, like email, they have to give up all others. They don't. You have simply added another very useful means to your communications repertoire.

The language of clothing is high symbolism and we all, in moments where we need to know this, realize it.

Honesty has come to mean the privilege of insulting you to your face without expecting redress.

Hypocrisy is not generally a social sin, but a virtue.

Parents should conduct their arguments in quiet, respectful tones, but in a foreign language. You'd be surprised what an inducement that is to the education of children.

Etiquette enables you to resolve conflict without just trading insults. Without etiquette, the irritations in modern life are so abrasive that you see people turning to the law to regulate everyday behavior. This frightens me; it's a major inroad on our basic freedoms.

We are all born charming, fresh and spontaneous, and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.

Obviously I'm going to be polite, so nobody has anything to fear from me.

Over the last couple of decades, the personalization of the office changed dramatically... there's an informality people often take for the absence of rules - which it's not.

My children did not go through a stage of being rude to their parents. I'm sorry if that sounds incredible.

We are born charming, fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.

First. I began my career as a copy girl. and the White House coverage, for example, was in the then-Women's section. So it was social coverage. It wasn't news, although we often got rather startling news out of it.

People read informality as, 'Do whatever you feel like,' and whatever you feel like might be disastrous.

It's like children getting new toys. But the excitement is over. People should be over it.

I try to behave myself, and I succeed.

Children should acknowledge other people, saying 'hello,' 'good morning,' 'goodbye'. They should understand that there are times to sit down and be quiet. That's a prerequisite for school. They also need a respect for authority, the lack of which is a tremendous handicap in school.

Gentle reader: Yes, the thing to do is to ignore it. A general rule of etiquette is that one apologizes for the unfortunate occurrence, but the unthinkable is unmentionable

I am a traditionalist, and I'm an innovator. Most of what I do is to weigh change and legislate to the best of my ability on what should change and what should not. Do I have a respect for tradition? Of course I do. Do I have a blind belief in it? No.

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.

A general rule of etiquette is that one apologizes for the unfortunate occurrence, but the unthinkable is unmentionable.

Miss Manners herself, while never rude, is given to pulling a fast pinch in the way of a handshake on those who believe in kissing on, not even the first date, but the first sighting.

Yes, etiquette is hypocritical. Yes, it does inhibit children - if you're lucky. But the idea that it's elitist and irrelevant is like saying language is elitist and irrelevant.

There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.

A lot of men got upset at the feminist movement because they had all the toys and we wanted some.

There is nothing like a good friend to help you out when you are not in trouble.

the obligation to express gratitude deepens with procrastination. The longer you wait, the more effusive must be the thanks.

Greece is a good place for rebirths.

Allowing an unimportant mistake to pass without comment is a wonderful social grace.

In its natural state, the child tells the literal truth because it is too naive to think of anything else. Blurting out the complete truth is considered adorable in the young, right smack up to the moment that the child says, 'Mommy, is this the fat lady you can't stand?

Most people who work at home find they do not have the benefit of receptionists who serve as personal guards

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.

What you have when everyone wears the same playclothes for all occasions, is addressed by nickname, expected to participate in Show And Tell, and bullied out of any desire form privacy, is not democracy; it is kindergarten.

To sacrifice the principles of manners, which require compassion and respect, and bat people over the head with their ignorance of etiquette rules they cannot be expected to know is both bad manners and poor etiquette. That social climbers and twits have misused etiquette throughout history should not be used as an argument for doing away with it.

Everybody's an art critic.

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.

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.

Chaperons, even in their days of glory, were almost never able to enforce morality; what they did was to force immorality to be discreet. This is no small contribution.

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.

When you consider how epidemic boredom is in our time, you have to concede that entertaining is a healing art.

The one prediction that never comes true is, 'You'll thank me for telling you this.

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.

Smart people duck when they hear the dread announcement 'I'm going to be perfectly honest with you.

You think death is any better an excuse for desertion than any other?

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.

Protocol is etiquette with a government expense account.

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.

People think, mistakenly, that etiquette means you have to suppress your differences. On the contray, etiquette is what enables you to deal with them; it gives you a set of rules.

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.

The rationale that etiquette should be eschewed because it fosters inequality does not ring true in a society that openly admits to a feverish interest in the comparative status-conveying qualities of sneakers. Manners are available to all, for free.

It is a widespread and firm belief among guests that their departure is always a matter of distress to their hosts, and that in order to indicate that they have been pleasantly entertained, they must demonstrate an extreme unwillingness to allow the entertainment to conclude. This is not necessarily true.

Washington knows that it is not safe to kick people who are down until you find out what their next stop will be.

You don't want to look too chic at a Washington party or people will think you don't have a job worth losing.

Charming villains have always had a decided social advantage over well-meaning people who chew with their mouths open.

It is, indeed, a trial to maintain the virtue of humility when one can't help being right.

Whamming someone smaller than oneself in order to teach that person civilized behavior is not within Miss Manners' concept of propriety, much less logic.

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.

If you put together all the ingredients that naturally attract children - sex, violence, revenge, spectacle and vigorous noise - what you have is grand opera.

GENTLE READER: You, sir, are an anarchist, and Miss Manners is frightened to have anything to do with you. It is true that questioning the table manners of others is rude. But to overthrow the accepted conventions of society, on the flimsy grounds that you have found them silly, inefficient and discomforting, is a dangerous step toward destroying civilization.

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.

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.

One reason that the task of inventing manners is so difficult is that etiquette is folk custom, and people have emotional ties to the forms of their youth. That is why there is such hostility between generations in times of rapid change; their manners being different, each feels affronted by the other, taking even the most surface choices for challenges.

The dinner table is the center for the teaching and practicing not just of table manners but of conversation, consideration, tolerance, family feeling, and just about all the other accomplishments of polite society except the minuet.

A small wedding is not necessarily one to which very few people are invited. It is one to which the person you are addressing is not invited.

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.

A young lady is a female child who has just done something dreadful.

everyone old enough to have a secret is entitled to have some place to keep it.

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.

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.

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.

It is not rude to turn off your telephone by switching it on to an answering machine, which is cheaper and less disruptive than ripping it out of the wall. Those who are offended because they cannot always get through when they seek, at their own convenience, to barge in on people are suffering from a rude expectation.

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.

From Memorial Day to Labor Day, you may wear white shoes. Not before and not after. As a command, the White Shoe Edict should be clear and simple enough. Do not violate it. In a society in which everything else has become relative, a matter of how it makes you feel, a question between you and your conscience, and an opportunity for you to be really you, this is an absolute.

The stress of making small talk with in-laws is called being part of a family.

The most conventional statements are both true and welcome.

Sometimes we do things a certain way just because that is the way we do things.

Part of the skill of saying no is to shut up afterward and not babble on, offering material for an argument.

Nowadays people consider it a disgrace to admit that they are not stressed.

[after the death of a loved one] It is when there is nothing more to be done that the reality of the loss often hits with full force.

Generosity and gratitude are inseparably linked.

Being listened to should be sufficiently gratifying in itself, whether or not the advice is followed.