“Clever politeness can throw people off. Be tactful.”

“They don't want clever men; clever men have ideas, and ideas cause trouble; they want men who have charm and tact and who can be counted on never to make a blunder.”

“Often people that tell others they are "extremely polite" when the situation calls for tact and bluntness are not actually polite people. Instead, they hide behind the word “polite” because they have low self esteem or hidden agendas. Sadly, they impolitely confuse the hell out of everyone, send mixed signals, which then makes people question their sanity and motives.”

“In Paris, where raillery is so quick to throw emotion out the window, silence, in a roomful of clever people after a story, is the most flattering of all marks of success”

“The worst of having so much tact was that you never quite knew whether other people were acting naturally or being tactful too.[The human element]”

“Sometimes they [people] throw off their freedom so quickly, you'd think it was burning them.”