Quotes About Etiquette

When meeting royalty, it is very important, no matter how excited you are, not to vomit on them. Instead, vomit on the nearest commoner.

To avoid public mention of any name unless it can be done with favorable intent and connotation; reserve all criticism for the private conference; speak only good in public.

The trick of being a good guest is never to ask any questions about the composition of the household. Hosts, even the grandest, are nervous creatures and interpret curiosity as evidence of dissatisfaction.

Reading at meals is considered rude in polite society, but if you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects.

I'd been raised by my parents to believe barfing your feelings on other people was the height of impoliteness...

Once he got there, he stopped and looked back. "You know, the thing about manners is that we only seem to notice the lack of them in others. It's a lot harder to see mistakes in ourselves.

Using the word chic while insulting someone doesn't make it okay.

You are truly classy if you manage to speak politely in spite of anger boiling inside you.

If a man whistles at you, don't turn around. You are a lady not a dog.

I love the Chinese words for greeting: not strictly 'Hello' but 'Have you eaten yet?

Thank you for your briefing," said the colonel when I was done. "But I do believe that if you could not say the word 'fuck,' your speeches would be only half as long.

Here's the thing about middle-class people. They pretend not to look, but they do. They're too polite to actually stare. Instead, they do this weird thing of catching sight of Will in their field of vision and then determinedly not looking at him. Until he's gone past, at which point their gaze flickers toward him, even while they remain in conversation with someone else. They won't talk about him, though. Because that would be rude.

right now." If he had been anybody else I might have hugged him just then, but we were English and he had once been my boss of sorts, so we simply smiled awkwardly at each other. And possibly wished we were somewhere else.

Margaret laughed. "Sure thing. Sorry, Ave. I'll go and get the tea." Ave. If Avice had been feeling less awful, she would have corrected her: there was nothing worse than an abbreviated name.

You should just keep your mouth shout! It gets very tedious having you make a snarky comment about everything that someone says in this group.

her. "No, thank you, Mrs. Cordoza. You get along. I'm just

Here's the thing about middle-class people. They pretend not to look, but they do. They were too polite to actually stare. Instead, they did this weird thing of catching sight of Will in their field of vision and then determinedly not looking at him. Until he'd gone past, at which point their gaze would flicker towards him, even while they remained in conversation with someone else. They wouldn't talk about him, though. Because that would be rude.

Here's the thing about middle-class people. They pretend not to look, but they do. They're too polite to actually stare. Instead, they do this weird thing of catching sight of Will in their field of vision and then determinedly not looking at him. Until he's gone past, at which point their gaze flickers toward him, even while they remain in conversation with someone else. They won't talk about him, though. Because that would be rude. As

He has an innate sense of courtesy, the kind of man who will instictively open a door for a woman, not because he's making some kind of chivalrous gesture but because it wouldn't occur to him not to open the door if someone needed to go through it.

Congratulations,' I said, indicating her belly. I wanted to say something else, but I could never work out whether it was appropriate to say a heavily pregnant woman was 'large', 'not large', 'neat', 'blooming', or any of the other euphemisms people seemed to use to disguise what they wanted to say, which was essentially along the lines of Bloody hell.

And yet something—perhaps an English predisposition not to appear rude, not to make a fuss, even if it does end up in your untimely murder—propels her forward.

She smiled blankly at me. 'I love your dress,' I said, the universal smoother for two women who have absolutely nothing to say to each other.

more decorous manner

Lily, our last girl, had rather a clever habit of using that pan for two vegetables at once" meant You're making too much mess. "Perhaps you'd like a cup of tea, Will" actually meant I have no idea what to say to you. "I think I've got some paperwork that needs sorting out" meant You're being rude, and I'm going to leave the room.