Quote

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.

Judith Martin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Judith Martin
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: September 13
Economist
Journalist
Washington
District of Columbia
Live
Periods
Adolescence
Children
Taxes
Parenting
Way
Late
Identify
Life
Pay
Teenager
People
Stay
Naturally
Wants
Humorous
Mistake
Invention
Inspirational
Period
Teens

More quotes by Judith Martin

Image
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
Image
It is said that dispensing advice is easy. What is difficult is getting anyone to listen to it.
Judith Martin
Image
Dishonesty is not the only alternative to honesty. There is also the highly underrated virtue of shutting up.
Judith Martin
Image
If written directions alone would suffice, libraries wouldn't need to have the rest of the universities attached.
Judith Martin
Image
[after the death of a loved one] It is when there is nothing more to be done that the reality of the loss often hits with full force.
Judith Martin
Image
A young lady is a female child who has just done something dreadful.
Judith Martin
Image
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
Image
The way one was brought up isn't an excuse for rude behavior.
Judith Martin
Image
Being listened to should be sufficiently gratifying in itself, whether or not the advice is followed.
Judith Martin
Image
I have always believed that the key to a happy marriage was the ability to say with a straight face, 'Why, I don't know what you're worrying about. I thought you were very funny last night and I'm sure everybody else did, too.
Judith Martin
Image
Allowing an unimportant mistake to pass without comment is a wonderful social grace.
Judith Martin
Image
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
Image
In its natural state, the child tells the literal truth because it is too naive to think of anything else. Blurting out the complete truth is considered adorable in the young, right smack up to the moment that the child says, 'Mommy, is this the fat lady you can't stand?
Judith Martin
Image
people, in forming their opinions of others, are usually lazy enough to go by whatever is most obvious or whatever chance remark they happen to hear. So the best policy is to dictate to others the opinion you want them to have of you.
Judith Martin
Image
When a society abandons its ideals just because most people can't live up to them, behavior gets very ugly indeed.
Judith Martin
Image
A general rule of etiquette is that one apologizes for the unfortunate occurrence, but the unthinkable is unmentionable.
Judith Martin
Image
Smart people duck when they hear the dread announcement 'I'm going to be perfectly honest with you.
Judith Martin
Image
Honesty has come to mean the privilege of insulting you to your face without expecting redress.
Judith Martin
Image
What restricts the use of the word 'lady' among the courteous is that it is intended to set a woman apart from ordinary humanity, and in the working world that is not a help, as women have discovered in many bitter ways.
Judith Martin
Image
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?
Judith Martin