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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

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Judith Martin
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: September 13
Economist
Journalist
Washington
District of Columbia
Happy
Worry
Funny
Everybody
Night
Sure
Else
Face
Worrying
Thought
Ability
Believed
Always
Lasts
Straight
Last
Keys
Faces
Marriage

More quotes by Judith Martin

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When politeness is used to show up other people, it is reclassified as rudeness. Thus it is technically impossible to be too polite.
Judith Martin
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Nowadays, you form your beliefs to fit your behavior, not the other way around.
Judith Martin
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Generosity and gratitude are inseparably linked.
Judith Martin
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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.
Judith Martin
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One of the big no-nos in cyberspace is that you do not go into a social activity, a chat group or something like that, and start advertising or selling things. This etiquette rule is an attempt to separate one's social life, which should be pure enjoyment and relaxation, from the pressures of work.
Judith Martin
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It's far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.
Judith Martin
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One should not be assigned one's identity in society by the job slot one happens to fill. If we truly believe in the dignity of labor, any task can be performed with equal pride because none can demean the basic dignity of a human being.
Judith Martin
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Chaperons, even in their days of glory, were almost never able to enforce morality what they did was to force immorality to be discreet. This is no small contribution.
Judith Martin
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Indeed, Miss Manners has come to believe that the basic political division in this country is not between liberals and conservatives but between those who believe that they should have a say in the love lives of strangers and those who do not.
Judith Martin
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We are all entitled to our little harmless habits, but we are not entitled to demand approval for them.
Judith Martin
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Society cannot exist without etiquette ... It never has, and until our own century, everybody knew that.
Judith Martin
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Nowadays people consider it a disgrace to admit that they are not stressed.
Judith Martin
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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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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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It is one of Miss Manners's great discoveries that one needn't contradict others in order to set them straight.
Judith Martin
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Most people who work at home find they do not have the benefit of receptionists who serve as personal guards
Judith Martin
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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
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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
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The only way to enjoy the fun of catching people behaving disgustingly is to have children. One has to keep having them, however, because it is incorrect to correct grown people, even if you have grown them yourself.
Judith Martin
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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