Judith Martin Quotes

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.

If you can't be kind, at least be vague.

We’re talking tradition here, for heaven’s sake. Not literary analysis. Do you consider “Good morning” to be a weather report?

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.

And you see control of your life disappearing as this catches on and people start booking your future without your consent. No, no, calm down. The “hold the date” card is not a summons, only a warning.

Making Others Feel Comfortable.

Lady” is not used before the lady’s first name unless she is the daughter of a duke, marquess or earl; those who come by the title through marriage use it before the husband’s name. Fortunately,

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.

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.

The customs of courtship vary in time, place and class. But they are always based on the desire to secure the affections of a person one believes to be too perfect to be reasonably attainable, not a person whose most conspicuous characteristic is convenience.

you never give anything below your own taste level — something you wouldn’t want, but suppose is good enough for others.

new method of taxing people with their faults has not only retained but magnified its own faults. It tells only one side of the story, and a far from disinterested one. Checking it out is difficult, but passing it on is easy.

clap has too sharp a sting.

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.

In general desirability, a child-free environment is considered somewhere between smoke-free and germ-free.