Quotes About Etiquette

First rule of cleavage: it's not how low you go, but where and when you show.

Two years of finishing school not entirely wasted. I can manage an imperious exit.

His knock apparently startled the scullery maid, but a good suit and a sober-headed cane opened many a door, including this one. And if she seemed inclined to shut it in his face again quite promptly, a silver shilling slipped into her hand with his visiting card corrected the matter.

She let her hand slide across the tailored dark fabric of his trousers before leaning back, curling against the arm of the loveseat in a manner that would have horrified her tutors.

When all else failed, her grandmother Mary would have said, good manners never deserted one.

Livvy noted there seemed some communal feeling between the married: any wife could be faintly rude to anyone else's husband.

Nothing more was said. It was evident that Uncle Robert, like Lady Catherine de Bourgh, would say no farewells and make no compliments.

Creativity is no excuse for obnoxious behavior

A sole cooked in a rich sauce of cream and mushrooms must be followed by a dry dish of entirely different aspect such as a roast partridge or a grilled tournedos, cold ham, jellied beef or a terrine of duck. It must not be preceded by a creamy mushroom soup, nor followed by chicken cooked in a cream sauce. Have some regard for the digestions of others even if your own resembles that of the ostrich.

If you're going to sleep through lectures and skip the readings, it's rude to do it from the front row. I'm at least a thoughtful reprobate.

He had not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his bones, and leanness goes a great way towards gentility.

What is the distinguishing mark of an aristocrat?' she asked him suddenly. 'Reverence,' he replied.

If you are the type who truly longs to be a Southern Belle at all times, regardless of taking twice the space available in bus, subway or elsewhere, you had best remove yourself to a large estate replete with servants.

This duel of consideration for one another that they had conducted for the last sixteen years involved shifting the truth about between them or withholding it altogether and was called good manners or affection, supposed to smooth the humdrum or prickly path of everyday married life. Its tyranny was apparent to neither.

A gentleman can hardly continue to sit,' he explained, in his serenest and most level voice, 'when he asks a very remarkable young lady to do him the honor of marrying him. And - 'he somehow contrived to grin at me wickedly, 'I usually get what I want, Miss Grahame,' he added, and pitched over in a tangled heap on the floor.

Italy is another Pack's territory. You're a guest; make sure that you are a polite one." God, I hope he told Heather that.

Is is difficult to be angry with a gentleman who pays you compliments, even impertinent compliments. Especially impertinent compliments.

He was watching her, leaning back in the chair with his arms crossed. His face was serious and kind; she saw he wasn't making fun. He spoke softly, his head bent forward with concern. "A woman should learn to take a compliment gracefully," he said.

Stop smelling me," she said to him.

Don't tell your friends about your indigestions: "How are you!" is a greeting, not a question.

At Jeffrey's table, "the talk [was] always good, but never ambitious, and those listening never in disrepute.

He liked to call people "brutes" or even "bitches" (in Scots it can apply to men as well as women).

But I remembered that it wouldn't be polite.

Therefore flee the company of childish people. Greet them, when you meet, with smiles That keep on terms of common courtesy, Without inviting intimate relations.