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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.

Judith Martin

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Judith Martin
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: September 13
Economist
Journalist
Washington
District of Columbia
Quiet
Tones
Parents
Respectful
Parent
Arguments
Education
Conduct
Language
Surprised
Children
Tone
Foreign
Argument
Inducement

More quotes by Judith Martin

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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.
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What we have come to, through a combination of popular psychology and expanding technology, is a presumption that all our thoughts and feelings are worth uttering.
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People will say, 'Seventy isn't old, it's middle-aged,' and I think, middle of what - 140?
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The most conventional statements are both true and welcome.
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Honesty has come to mean the privilege of insulting you to your face without expecting redress.
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The only way to enjoy the fun of catching people behaving disgustingly is to have children. One has to keep having them, however, because it is incorrect to correct grown people, even if you have grown them yourself.
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The etiquette question that troubles so many fastidious people New Year's Day is: How am I ever going to face those people again?
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You think death is any better an excuse for desertion than any other?
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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.
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It is said that dispensing advice is easy. What is difficult is getting anyone to listen to it.
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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.
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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.
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Only a person who considers himself too good for you is good enough.
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Washington knows that it is not safe to kick people who are down until you find out what their next stop will be.
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A wedding invitation is 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?
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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.
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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.
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When you consider how epidemic boredom is in our time, you have to concede that entertaining is a healing art.
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You do not have to do everything disagreeable that you have a right to do
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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.
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