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The stress of making small talk with in-laws is called being part of a family.

Judith Martin

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Judith Martin
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: September 13
Economist
Journalist
Washington
District of Columbia
Part
Stress
Women
Laws
Called
Small
Law
Talk
Family
Making

More quotes by Judith Martin

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It is one of Miss Manners's great discoveries that one needn't contradict others in order to set them straight.
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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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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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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.
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Smart people duck when they hear the dread announcement 'I'm going to be perfectly honest with you.
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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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Society cannot exist without etiquette ... It never has, and until our own century, everybody knew that.
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When a society abandons its ideals just because most people can't live up to them, behavior gets very ugly indeed.
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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.
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Being listened to should be sufficiently gratifying in itself, whether or not the advice is followed.
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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.
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Most people who work at home find they do not have the benefit of receptionists who serve as personal guards
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It is wrong to wear diamonds before luncheon, except on one’s marriage rings. Before, after, and during breakfast, luncheon and dinner, it is vulgar to wear a mixture of colored precious stones. It is always a comfort to know that so many things one can’t afford to do anyway are vulgar.
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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.
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If written directions alone would suffice, libraries wouldn't need to have the rest of the universities attached.
Judith Martin
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A small wedding is not necessarily one to which very few people are invited. It is one to which the person you are addressing is not invited.
Judith Martin
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. . . 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
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We are born charming fresh and spontaneous and must be civilized before we are fit to participate in society.
Judith Martin
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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.
Judith Martin
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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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