Quote

The most conventional statements are both true and welcome.

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
Conventional
Statements
Welcome
True
Women

More quotes by Judith Martin

Image
Try not to annoy your relatives unnecessarily.
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
We are all entitled to our little harmless habits, but we are not entitled to demand approval for them.
Judith Martin
Image
Like language, a code of manners can be used with more or less skill, for laudable or for evil purposes, to express a great variety of ideas and emotions. In itself, it carries no moral value, but ignorance in use of this tool is not a sign of virtue.
Judith Martin
Image
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
Image
I make a distinction between manners and etiquette - manners as the principles, which are eternal and universal, etiquette as the particular rules which are arbitrary and different in different times, different situations, different cultures.
Judith Martin
Image
Hypocrisy is not generally a social sin, but a virtue.
Judith Martin
Image
Nowadays, you form your beliefs to fit your behavior, not the other way around.
Judith Martin
Image
You do not have to do everything disagreeable that you have a right to do
Judith Martin
Image
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
Image
The simple idea that everyone needs a reasonable amount of challenging work in his or her life, and also a personal life, complete with noncompetitive leisure, has never really taken hold.
Judith Martin
Image
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
Image
It's far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.
Judith Martin
Image
You think death is any better an excuse for desertion than any other?
Judith Martin
Image
When you consider how epidemic boredom is in our time, you have to concede that entertaining is a healing art.
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
Honesty has come to mean the privilege of insulting you to your face without expecting redress.
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
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
Image
A general rule of etiquette is that one apologizes for the unfortunate occurrence, but the unthinkable is unmentionable.
Judith Martin