Fairness does not consist so much of everybody's doing the same thing, but of everybody's being willing to do something that others don't want to do.

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

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

When you consider how epidemic boredom is in our time, you have to concede that entertaining is a healing art.

The etiquette question that troubles so many fastidious people New Year's Day is: How am I ever going to face those people again?

We are all born rude. No infant has ever appeared yet with the grace to understand how inconsiderate it is to disturb others in the middle of the night.

GENTLE READER: You, sir, are an anarchist, and Miss Manners is frightened to have anything to do with you. It is true that questioning the table manners of others is rude. But to overthrow the accepted conventions of society, on the flimsy grounds that you have found them silly, inefficient and discomforting, is a dangerous step toward destroying civilization.