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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.
Judith Martin
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Judith Martin
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: September 13
Economist
Journalist
Washington
District of Columbia
Anything
Wrote
Supposed
Private
Rule
Fool
Postcard
Nobody
Postcards
Read
Applies
Else
Email
More quotes by Judith Martin
Being listened to should be sufficiently gratifying in itself, whether or not the advice is followed.
Judith Martin
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.
Judith Martin
The most conventional statements are both true and welcome.
Judith Martin
Smart people duck when they hear the dread announcement 'I'm going to be perfectly honest with you.
Judith Martin
Try not to annoy your relatives unnecessarily.
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
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
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.
Judith Martin
The way one was brought up isn't an excuse for rude behavior.
Judith Martin
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.
Judith Martin
. . . women were brought up to have only one set of manners. A woman was either a lady or she wasn't, and we all know what the latter meant. Not even momentary lapses were allowed there is no female equivalent of the boys-will-be-boys concept.
Judith Martin
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.
Judith Martin
There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.
Judith Martin
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.
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
It is one of Miss Manners's great discoveries that one needn't contradict others in order to set them straight.
Judith Martin
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.
Judith Martin
We are born charming fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.
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
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.
Judith Martin