“Insofar as he'd formed any opinion of her, it was that she suffered from misplaced gentility and the mistaken belief that etiquette meant good breeding. She mistook mannerisms for manners.”

“Ellen Cherry was from the south and had good manners. She didn´t have any panties on, but she had good manners.”

“Truly good manners are invisible: they ease the way for others, without drawing attention to themselves. It is no accident that the word "punctilious" ("attentive to formality or etiquette") comes from the same original root as punctuation.”

“Belief in mysteries, any manner of mysteries, is the only lasting luxury in life.”

“Contrary to popular opinion, manners are not a luxury good that's interesting only to those who can afford to think about them. The essence of good manners is not exclusivity, nor exclusion of any kind, but sensitivity. To practice good manners is to confer upon others not just consideration but esteem; it's to bathe others in a commodity best described by noted speller Aretha Franklin.”

“One reason that the task of inventing manners is so difficult is that etiquette is folk custom, and people have emotional ties to the forms of their youth. That is why there is such hostility between generations in times of rapid change; their manners being different, each feels affronted by the other, taking even the most surface choices for challenges.”