Nobody believes that the man who says, 'Look, lady, you wanted equality,' to explain why he won't give up his seat to a pregnant woman carrying three grocery bags, a briefcase, and a toddler is seized with the symbolism of idealism.

For email, the old postcard rule applies. Nobody else is supposed to read your postcards, but you'd be a fool if you wrote anything private on one.

When politeness is used to show up other people, it is reclassified as rudeness. Thus it is technically impossible to be too polite.

The invention of the teenager was a mistake. Once you identify a period of life in which people get to stay out late but don't have to pay taxes - naturally, no one wants to live any other way.

Nowadays, you form your beliefs to fit your behavior, not the other way around.

It is a widespread and firm belief among guests that their departure is always a matter of distress to their hosts, and that in order to indicate that they have been pleasantly entertained, they must demonstrate an extreme unwillingness to allow the entertainment to conclude. This is not necessarily true.

To sacrifice the principles of manners, which require compassion and respect, and bat people over the head with their ignorance of etiquette rules they cannot be expected to know is both bad manners and poor etiquette. That social climbers and twits have misused etiquette throughout history should not be used as an argument for doing away with it.