Top 17 Quotes & Sayings by Amy Vanderbilt

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American author Amy Vanderbilt.

Last updated on December 5, 2024.

Amy Osborne Vanderbilt was an American authority on etiquette. In 1952 she published the best-selling book Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Etiquette. The book, later retitled Amy Vanderbilt's Etiquette, has been updated and is still in circulation. The most recent edition (ISBN 0-385-41342-4) was edited by Nancy Tuckerman and Nancy Dunnan. Its longtime popularity has led to its being considered a standard of etiquette writing.

American - Author | July 22, 1908 - December 27, 1974

Source: Wikipedia

Good manners have much to do with the emotions. To make them ring true, one must feel them, not merely exhibit them.

Amy Vanderbilt

The modern rule is that every woman should be her own chaperone.

Amy Vanderbilt

We must learn which ceremonies may be breached occasionally at our convenience and which ones may never be if we are to live pleasantly with our fellow man.

Amy Vanderbilt

I am a journalist in the field of etiquette. I try to find out what the most genteel people regularly do, what traditions they have discarded, what compromises they have made.

Amy Vanderbilt

Ceremony is-really a protection, too, in times of emotional involvement, particularly at death. If we have a social formula to guide us and do not have to extemporize, we feel better able to handle life.

Amy Vanderbilt

I have no use for people who exhibit manners.

Amy Vanderbilt

One face to the world, another at home - makes for misery.

Amy Vanderbilt

Everyone knows that a man can marry even if he reaches the age of 102, is penniless, and has all his facilities gone. There is always some woman willing to take a chance on him.

Amy Vanderbilt

Do not smoke without asking permission or sit so near (as in a train) that the smoke might annoy.

Amy Vanderbilt

The best-dressed women I know pay very little attention to the picayune aspects of fashion, but they have a sound understanding of style.

Amy Vanderbilt

Do not speak of repulsive matters at table.

Amy Vanderbilt

Parents must get across the idea that "I love you always, but sometimes I do not love your behavior."

Amy Vanderbilt

When we learn to give thanks, we are learning to concentrate not on the bad things, but on the good things in our lives.

Amy Vanderbilt

In Hollywood, not to have an analyst is virtually an admission of failure.

Amy Vanderbilt

Only a great fool or a great genius is likely to flout all social grace with impunity, and neither one, doing so, makes the most comfortable companion.

Amy Vanderbilt

Breakfast is the one meal at which it is permissible to read the paper.

Amy Vanderbilt