"'Honesty' in social life is often used as a cover for rudeness. But there is quite a difference between being candid in what you're talking about, and people voicing their insulting opinions under the name of honesty."
"Screening telephone calls with a receptionist or the humbler answering machine is not a dishonorable thing to do. The warmest people in the world still need uninterrupted time to attend to their lives and should not be outwitted if they have made it obvious that they are not always available upon summons."
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Source: Judith Martin (1996). “Common courtesy: in which Miss Manners solves the problem that baffled Mr. Jefferson”
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"The whole country wants civility. Why don't we have it? It doesn't cost anything. No federal funding, no legislation is involved. One answer is the unwillingness to restrain oneself. Everybody wants other people to be polite to them, but they want the freedom of not having to be polite to others."
"Most people who work at home find they do not have the benefit of receptionists who serve as personal guards"
"The dinner table is the center for the teaching and practicing not just of table manners but of conversation, consideration, tolerance, family feeling, and just about all the other accomplishments of polite society except the minuet."
"Indeed, Miss Manners has come to believe that the basic political division in this country is not between liberals and conservatives but between those who believe that they should have a say in the love lives of strangers and those who do not."
"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."