Quotes About Social norms

The trouble with dead people today is they have no sense of decorum

Mrs. Charlotte Phelan's Guide to Husband-Hunting, Rule Number One: a pretty, petite girl should accentuate with makeup and good posture. A tall plain one, with a trust fund.

Because of their cuisine, Germans don't consider farting rude. They'd certainly be out of luck if they did.

I noticed that among this class of colored men the word "nigger" was freely used in about the same sense as the word "fellow," and sometimes as a term of almost endearment; but I soon learned that its use was positively and absolutely prohibited to white men.

Everything Jane Austen read came alive, but, at the same time, her natural empathy with those she encountered through her reading was kept in check by a keen sense of the ridiculous and of the potential absurdity of emotional display.

Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor, which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony.

The effort whites put into observing racial etiquette has been demonstrated in the laboratory.

People in South Philly don't spend a lot of time talking about French royalty. Still, I don't want to look like an idiot, so I shovel on more lies.

Julian Singh," he said, extending his hand. No one (a) introduces himself and then (b) extends his hand to be shaken while (c) wearing shorts and (d) knee socks and (e) holding a genuine leather book bag on (f) the first day of school.

She had been bored all afternoon by Percy Gryce... but she could not ignore him on the morrow, she must follow up her success, must submit to more boredom, must be ready with fresh compliances and adaptibilities, and all on the bare chance that he might ultimately decide to do her the honour of boring her for life.

Every drop of blood in Lily's veins invited her to happiness.

Your coat's a little shabby—but who cares? It doesn't keep people from asking you to dine. If I were shabby no one would have me: a woman is asked out as much for her clothes as for herself. The clothes are the background, the frame, if you like: they don't make success, but they are a part of it. Who wants a dingy woman? We are expected to be pretty and well-dressed till we drop—and if we can't keep it up alone, we have to go into partnership.

It was amusement enough to be with a group of fearless and talkative girls, who said new things in a new language, who were ignorant of tradition and unimpressed by distinctions of rank; but it was soon clear that their young hostesses must be treated with the same respect, if not with the same ceremony as English girls of good family.

he wonders whether young women raised under such restrictive conditions can ever overcome the disadvantage of deliberately engineered lacunae in their mental, moral, and emotional development. The

Pero, en primer lugar, Nueva York era una metrópolis perfectamente consciente de que en las grandes capitales no era bien visto llegar temprano a la ópera; y lo que era o no era bien visto jugaba un rol tan importante en la Nueva York de Newland Archer como los inescrutables y ancestrales seres terroríficos que habían dominado el destino de sus antepasados miles de años atrás.

I realize that homosexuality is a serious problem for anyone who is—but then, of course, heterosexuality is a serious problem for anyone who is, too. And being a man is a serious problem and being a woman is, too. Lots of things are problems.

Everyone would like to behave like a pagan, with everyone else behaving like a Christian.

There are few who would not rather be taken in adultery than in provincialism.

Being single isn't a terminal disease." "Try telling that to my mother.

Some parents let their kids sleep at other people's houses, where they drink alcohol, watch TV for hours and God knows what else. But if you say you have to get all A's and practice the violin for two hours, then they consider that abusive. That upsets me.

When someone watches us eating, we feel exposed. We might also harbor a suspicion that the person staring wants to steal food from our plate. The taboo, in any case, is long-standing.

I moved to a city and joined a sort of fast crowd. A lot of people who grew up in the city sort of aren't aware of manners and other ways of life and 'common decency.'

When you're a kid, helping an old lady across the street is kind of cute. But when you're an adult, it's just plain creepy.

There's a thing that happens to Midwesterners - we spend a lot of time talking about having a different set of rules about manners. I don't know about ethics, but certainly about manners, what you would say and what you wouldn't say. And that is not very East coast.