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There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.
Judith Martin
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Judith Martin
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: September 13
Economist
Journalist
Washington
District of Columbia
Three
America
Women
Upper
Classes
Lower
Middle
Class
Social
More quotes by Judith Martin
Nowadays, you form your beliefs to fit your behavior, not the other way around.
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
The challenge of manners is not so much to be nice to someone whose favor and/or person you covet (although more people need to be reminded of that necessity than one would suppose) as to be exposed to the bad manners of others without imitating them.
Judith Martin
The most conventional statements are both true and welcome.
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
Allowing an unimportant mistake to pass without comment is a wonderful social grace.
Judith Martin
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.
Judith Martin
The etiquette business has its emergencies, heaven knows, but it is in the nature of etiquette emergencies that once one realizes what one has done, it is too late. One might as well get a good night's sleep and send flowers with an apology in the morning.
Judith Martin
Allowing an unimportant mistake to pass without a comment is a wonderful social grace ... Children who have the habit of constantly correcting should be stopped before they grow up to drive spouses and everyone else crazy by interrupting stories to say, 'No, dear -- it was Tuesday, not Wednesday.
Judith Martin
If written directions alone would suffice, libraries wouldn't need to have the rest of the universities attached.
Judith Martin
When a society abandons its ideals just because most people can't live up to them, behavior gets very ugly indeed.
Judith Martin
You do not have to do everything disagreeable that you have a right to do
Judith Martin
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.
Judith Martin
Smart people duck when they hear the dread announcement 'I'm going to be perfectly honest with you.
Judith Martin
[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
Most people who work at home find they do not have the benefit of receptionists who serve as personal guards
Judith Martin
It doesn't matter whether the bride or the bridegroom writes the letters of thanks for wedding presents provided that these go out immediately after the arrival of each present and are not in the handwriting of the bride's mother.
Judith Martin
People think, mistakenly, that etiquette means you have to suppress your differences. On the contray, etiquette is what enables you to deal with them it gives you a set of rules.
Judith Martin
Perhaps the greatest rudenesses of our time come not from the callousness of strangers, but from the solicitousness of intimates who believe that their frank criticisms are always welcome, and who feel free to be themselves with those they love, which turns out to mean being their worst selves, while saving their best behavior for strangers.
Judith Martin
You think death is any better an excuse for desertion than any other?
Judith Martin
