I don't do plays without jokes anymore. I've retired from those plays. I think it's bad manners to invite people to sit in the dark for two and a half hours and not tell them the joke.
This self-congratulatory notion Americans have that their country is Number One is borne of ignorance and bad manners.
Good manners are appreciated as much as bad manners are abhorred.
It strikes me as bad manners for a magazine to accept one of my advertisements and then attack it editorially - like inviting a man to dinner then spitting in his eye.
I get more disgusted with men all the time - particularly traveling Americans. They start out on a trip to Europe and never bother to pack a dinner jacket. This is not only stupid - it's bad manners.
Manners are of such great consequence to the novelist that any kind will do. Bad manners are better than no manners at all, and because we are losing our customary manners, we are probably overly conscious of them; this seems to be a condition that produces writers.
War is a form of really bad manners, in a strange way. Invading a country I think is just the worst possible manners. 'You're not invited!' Gate crashing on a large scale!
Good manners sometimes means simply putting up with other people's bad manners.
There is so much bad manners and oafishness in large corporations.
I don't ever knock anybody; that's bad manners.
