Allowing an unimportant mistake to pass without comment is a wonderful social grace.

Visiting the sick is supposed to exhibit such great virtue that there are some people determined to do it whether the sick like it or not. ... All visitors everywhere are supposed to make plans to depart if they observe their hosts visibly wilting or in pain, but this is especially true at hospitals.

I have always believed that the key to a happy marriage was the ability to say with a straight face, 'Why, I don't know what you're worrying about. I thought you were very funny last night and I'm sure everybody else did, too.

People say when you're in love, you don't need etiquette. Well, you need it then more than anything. Or they say, "At home I can just be myself." What they mean is they can be their worst selves... They always mean they will save all their anxiety about how to behave for somebody like the head waiter of a restaurant, someone they'll never see again.

Honesty is a virtue, but not the only one. If you're in a courtroom you need the whole truth and nothing but the truth; in the living room, sometimes you need anything but. Often.

If you put together all the ingredients that naturally attract children - sex, violence, revenge, spectacle and vigorous noise - what you have is grand opera.

Why bring children into a world where no one writes letters?