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Try not to annoy your relatives unnecessarily.
Judith Martin
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Judith Martin
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: September 13
Economist
Journalist
Washington
District of Columbia
Trying
Unnecessarily
Annoy
Relatives
Annoying
Women
More quotes by Judith Martin
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
Etiquette enables you to resolve conflict without just trading insults. Without etiquette, the irritations in modern life are so abrasive that you see people turning to the law to regulate everyday behavior. This frightens me it's a major inroad on our basic freedoms.
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
Only a person who considers himself too good for you is good enough.
Judith Martin
Honesty has come to mean the privilege of insulting you to your face without expecting redress.
Judith Martin
There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.
Judith Martin
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
Society cannot exist without etiquette ... It never has, and until our own century, everybody knew that.
Judith Martin
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.
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
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
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
People will say, 'Seventy isn't old, it's middle-aged,' and I think, middle of what - 140?
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
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
You should resolve not to seek public approval of your private business, when you are not also prepared to accept public disapproval.
Judith Martin
It is one of Miss Manners's great discoveries that one needn't contradict others in order to set them straight.
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
When you consider how epidemic boredom is in our time, you have to concede that entertaining is a healing art.
Judith Martin
We are all entitled to our little harmless habits, but we are not entitled to demand approval for them.
Judith Martin
