Judith Martin
Judith Martin

Freedom without rules doesn't work. And communities do not work unless they are regulated by etiquette.

Judith Martin
Judith Martin

It's far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.

Judith Martin
Judith Martin

'Honesty' in social life is often used as a cover for rudeness. But there is quite a difference between being candid in what you're talking about, and people voicing their insulting opinions under the name of honesty.

Judith Martin
Judith Martin

When people start hurling insults at you, you know their minds are closed and there's no point in debating. You disengage yourself as quickly as possible from the situation.

Judith Martin
Judith Martin

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
Judith Martin

Many people mistakenly think a new technology cancels out an old one.

Judith Martin
Judith Martin

Chaperons don't enforce morality; they force immorality to be discreet.

Judith Martin
Judith Martin

If written directions alone would suffice, libraries wouldn't need to have the rest of the universities attached.

Judith Martin
Judith Martin

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
Judith Martin

Hypocrisy is not generally a social sin, but a virtue.

Judith Martin
Judith Martin

Being polite does not mean being mummified.

Judith Martin
Judith Martin

Etiquette is all human social behavior. If you're a hermit on a mountain, you don't have to worry about etiquette; if somebody comes up the mountain, then you've got a problem. It matters because we want to live in reasonably harmonious communities.

Judith Martin
Judith Martin

Email is very informal, a memo. But I find that not signing off or not having a salutation bothers me.

Judith Martin
Judith Martin

First. I began my career as a copy girl. and the White House coverage, for example, was in the then-Women's section. So it was social coverage. It wasn't news, although we often got rather startling news out of it.

Judith Martin
Judith Martin

The mistake people keep making is that if they find a wonderful new tool, like email, they have to give up all others. They don't. You have simply added another very useful means to your communications repertoire.

Judith Martin
Judith Martin

People read informality as, 'Do whatever you feel like,' and whatever you feel like might be disastrous.

Judith Martin
Judith Martin

There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.

Judith Martin
Judith Martin

The greater the controversy, the more you need manners.

Judith Martin
Judith Martin

I try to behave myself, and I succeed.

Judith Martin
Judith Martin

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.