Quotes About Formality

What do ties matter, Jeeves, at a time like this?' There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter

I mean, if you're asking a fellow to come out of a room so that you can dismember him with a carving knife, it's absurd to tack a 'sir' on to every sentence. The two things don't go together.

Jeeves, of course, is a gentleman's gentlemen, not a butler, but if the call comes, he can buttle with the best of them.

He coughed again, that deferential cough of his which sounds like a well-bred sheep clearing its throat on a distant mountain-top.

To whom have I the honour of speaking?

have not earned the right to call him a more casual name.

While it was impossible to be formal and reserved in her company, it was more than impossible to take the faintest vestige of a liberty with her, even in thought. I felt this instinctively, even while I caught the infection of her own bright gaiety of spirits--even while I did my best to answer her in her own frank, lively way.

and then the other op-er-at-or told the formal in-stee-gay-tor that his suit could not be heard the very

When your finance professor starts using the word "dude," you must eliminate the word from your vocabulary.

Would you like to come in?" I said. My hands were sweaty. Inside my chest an ocean heaved and crashed and heaved again. "I would," he said. I saw his Adam's apple jerk as he swallowed. "Thank you." I was distracted by that thank you. We had moved past the language of formality long ago. It was strange to relearn it with each other.

But if man, as in our society, advances only towards physical love, even though he surrounds it with deceptions and with the shallow formality of marriage, he obtains nothing but licensed vice.

no matter how warm the relationship, there's always a certain etiquette when you deal with an in- law, a trace of formality.

The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual.

It isn't etiquette to cut anyone you've been introduced to. Remove the joint!

Nothing shows both polish and utility like the nattily tucked pocket handkerchief or 'pocket square' in the breast pocket of a man's blazer, sport coat, or suit jacket.

The honorific was long winded, but correct. Technically speaking, all practitioners should be introduced this way, but it just soaked up useful time that might be otherwise spent drinking tea, or chatting.

A wedding is the formality a man has to go through before going to work for a new boss.

Obviously if you are an accountant, a criminal lawyer, a president, or a senator, or if you work in a funeral parlor, you have to wear a tie, but more and more people are wearing very casual clothes.

In big houses in which things are done properly, there is always the religious element. The diurnal cycle is observed with more feeling when there are servants to do the work.

Our marriage is strictly in name only. It has never been consummated.

I don't like dining rooms. I think they have too much structure and are too formal.

The idea of writing, to me, was, from the beginning, was writing something which was a little different from the ordinary exchange of speech. It was something that had a certain formality, something in which the words were of interest in themselves.

Think about the style of the occasion before you plan your outfit.

matter of form, rather than substance.