Judith Martin Quotes

105 Sourced Quotes

A person who doesn't feel rejected doesn't go away. A painless rejection isn't one.

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

Judith Martin
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.

Judith Martin
A myth exists that one of the pleasures of private life is the ability to drop manners.

Judith Martin
Society cannot exist without etiquette... It never has, and until our own century, everybody knew that.

Judith Martin
Why bring children into a world where no one writes letters?

Judith Martin
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.

Judith Martin
College women are typically given to declaring for one or the other (in my day, for marriage; now, generally, for careers), and only later finding to their surprise that they must cope with both — while their men may be trying to figure out how to get out of doing both.

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

Judith Martin
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.

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

Judith Martin
Nowadays, you form your beliefs to fit your behavior, not the other way around.

Judith Martin
Dear Miss Manners: What is the proper way to eat potato chips?
Gentle Reader: With a knife and fork. A fruit knife and an oyster fork, to be specific. Good heavens, what is the world coming to? Miss Manners does not mind explaining the finer points of gracious living, but she feels that anyone without the sense to pick up a potato chip and stuff it in their face should probably not be running around loose on the streets.

Judith Martin
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.

Judith Martin
Smokers make excellent friends at present-giving time, because they can always be given pretty lighters and ashtrays.

Judith Martin
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.

Judith Martin
Miss Manners cannot think of a more succinct definition of a lady than 'someone who wants to punch another person in the nose, but doesn't.'

Judith Martin
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.

Judith Martin
A wedding invitation is beautiful and formal notification of the desire to share a solemn and joyous occasion, 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?'

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

Judith Martin
[The President of the United States] gets off easier than his wife, to whom we traditionally assign ceremonial tasks so we can scorn her for being frivolous — when we're not complaining that she has no business interesting herself in substantive state matters because nobody elected her to office.

Judith Martin
People will say, 'Seventy isn't old, it's middle-aged,' and I think, middle of what — 140?

Judith Martin
The etiquette question that troubles so many fastidious people New Year's Day is: How am I ever going to face those people again?

Judith Martin
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.

Judith Martin
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.

Judith Martin
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.

Judith Martin
It is well known that a mother with fatherless children drove some man away with her bitchiness, while a father with motherless children is the tender victim of some selfish woman.

Judith Martin
Screening telephone calls with a receptionist or the humbler answering machine is not a dishonorable thing to do. The warmest people in the world still need uninterrupted time to attend to their lives and should not be outwitted if they have made it obvious that they are not always available upon summons.

Judith Martin
When politeness is used to show up other people, it is reclassified as rudeness. Thus it is technically impossible to be too polite.

Judith Martin
Originality is not everything. The words hosts most want to hear when the evening is over are 'Thank you, I had a wonderful time' and 'Good night.'

Judith Martin