Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior Quotes

“It is wrong to wear diamonds before luncheon, except on one’s marriage rings. Before, after, and during breakfast, luncheon and dinner, it is vulgar to wear a mixture of colored precious stones. It is always a comfort to know that so many things one can’t afford to do anyway are vulgar.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“As successful people are afraid of being used, unsuccessful people are afraid of being snubbed, interesting people want to talk about something different from their jobs and boring people won’t stop talking about their jobs,”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“The correct British peer would no more dream of using his own title than he would of using his own umbrella, although he carries both and is proud of their age.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“Miss Manners remembers who should be introduced to whom, but then she also remembers the difference between “who” and “whom.” The formula is simple: One introduces inferiors to their superiors. Thus, gentlemen are introduced to ladies, young people to old, unranked ones to those of exalted stature and your own relatives to everyone else. It”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“Miss Manners corrects only upon request. Then she does it from a distance, with no names attached, and no personal relationship, however distant, between the corrector and the correctee. She does not search out errors like a policeman leaping out of a speed trap. When Miss Manners observes people behaving rudely, she behaves politely to them, and then goes home and snickers about them afterward.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“Miss Manners fails to understand why philanthropists would turn from the needy to the greedy, but she is not in the business of laundering rudeness to make it seem acceptable.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“Relax!” “Don’t go to so much trouble!” “Why don’t you use plastic glasses?” “Take off your jacket!” “Why don’t you use paper napkins?” “Don’t be so formal!” “Sit down!” “Why don’t you use paper plates?” “You don’t have to impress us!” Guests who make such remarks to their hosts must fondly imagine the effect they produce: “Whew,” the host must think. “I don’t have to strain myself pretending to be something I’m not. These people love me just as I am, without all this fancy stuff.” Or maybe not. Miss Manners is afraid that the effect might be more like this: “Try and do something nice for people, and look what you get. They come into my house, call me pretentious to my face, criticize my stuff, complain about the way I do things, bark orders at me and try to foist their own slobby standards on me. How would they like it if I came to their houses and suggested that they try a little harder?” Yet”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“As dear Erasmus said in De Civilitate, “It is safe to admit nothing that might embarrass one if repeated.” Gossip”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“Conversation consists of developing and playing with ideas by juxtaposing the accumulated conclusions of two or more people and then improvising on them. It requires supplying such ingredients as information, experience, anecdotes, and opinions, but then being prepared to have them challenged and to contribute to a new mixture. Conversation”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“But why bother with guests at all? The virtual community is larger and less trouble than the relatives and friends upon whom self-fundraisers had been drawing. The pioneers in using the Internet to ask strangers for money patterned themselves on the causes of reputable charity—such as donating toward education or helping the ill—except for designating themselves the sole beneficiaries. A breakthrough was achieved when it was discovered that asking for money for luxuries also brought results. These practices are no less vulgar for having become commonplace. There is no polite way to tell people to give you money or objects, and no polite way to entertain people at their expense. Begging is the last resort of the desperate, not a social form requiring others to help people live beyond their means.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“Miss Manners’ meager arsenal consists only of the withering look, the insistent and repeated request, the cold voice, the report up the chain of command and the tilted nose. They generally work.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“The President of the United States is addressed by nickname (his or his enemies') before the election and "Mr. President" after taking office. Everybody else in Washington is styled "The Honorable" to make up for what everybody outside of Washington calls them.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“The numbers at a dinner should not be less than the Graces, nor more than the Muses,” stated the Roman formula, when guests lay three to a couch. If the Graces are busy, you could try the Fates, who are not asked out as often.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“There is no known correct way to eat pistachio nuts. Nevertheless, they are delicious. The pistachio nut must therefore be Nature’s way of teaching us self-control. If so, it doesn’t work.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“GENTLE READER”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“writing pad that bears the logo of public accommodations.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“She expects you to keep your eyes still while you say to the conductor, “Of course, I’d be glad to, but I especially wanted to sit by the window. Would you be good enough to find me another window seat? And then we could change.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“the standing ovation from a rare and valued tribute”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“The polite thing would be to say to the noisy person, “I beg your pardon, but I can’t hear the music. I wonder if you would mind talking more softly?” By the time you have said all this, a third party will utter a loud shush, thereby accomplishing your purpose without sacrificing your manners.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“clap has too sharp a sting.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“Whenever possible, look at the camera, not at the person to whom you are talking. It represents the person to whom you are really talking: the viewer.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“Your answer to when you will be available should be “You’re so kind to invite us, and we wish we could name a date, but it will have to be after we figure out how to manage seeing relatives and friends whom we feel we have neglected.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“We’re talking tradition here, for heaven’s sake. Not literary analysis. Do you consider “Good morning” to be a weather report?”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“while eighteen-button gloves have three small pearl buttons each at the musketeer (which everyone knows is the opening at the wrist), there are, indeed, eighteen buttons on each in length. That button is a standard of measurement of approximately one inch. The approximate part is because it is a French standard of measurement.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“Americans used to pity and be amused at countries where the citizens all wore drab work clothes and the leaders were belligerently under-dressed for state occasions; now those people have discovered fashion, and we wear drab work clothes and are suspicious of formality.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“when all of life is a costume party, costume parties are no longer possible.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“you never give anything below your own taste level—something you wouldn’t want, but suppose is good enough for others.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“It is a general rule to err on the side of formality rather than of intimacy.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“the life preserver to be tossed is: “I don’t think you realize how that sounds. I can’t imagine that you really believe that, but in any case, let’s talk about something else.”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

“suddenly ceased”
― Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior