You do not have to do everything disagreeable that you have a right to do

You do not have to do everything disagreeable that you have a right to do

The more skillful the performance of false cheer, the more pleasing the effect is upon one's public and on that private audience to whom one owes even more.

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

The etiquette of intimacy is very different from the etiquette of formality, but manners are not just something to show off to the outside world. If you offend the head waiter, you can always go to another restaurant. If you offend the person you live with, it's very cumbersome to switch to a different family.

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

The idea that people can behave naturally, without resorting to an artificial code tacitly agreed upon by their society, is as silly as the idea that they can communicate by a spoken language without commonly accepted semantic and grammatical rules.