Not Well Mannered Quotes & Sayings

Under no circumstances are you to butter your entire roll and, my God!" she cried suddenly, switching Lan's hand three times in rapid succession. "Never lick your knife!" "Ouch! Fine! Buggering fuck! Leave off with that beshitted thing!" The dead woman let out a sound like the chirping of a bird, staring at her with an indignation that was nearly horror. "Ladies," she sputtered at last. "Ladies do not say bugger or fuck!" "But beshitted's all right?" Lan asked cautiously. "No, it is not!" "You know, I may not be as mannered-up as you are, but in Norwood, it's rude to yell at the table. — R. Lee Smith

I love that there are beaches you can walk your dog on in San Francisco. Fort Funston is big and always packed with hundreds of dogs and their people. A great place to hike and get some exercise and fresh air with your well-mannered pup. Not recommended for antisocial dogs; there's just too much commotion there. — Jane Wiedlin

Has anyone else ... "
"Hmm?" Grams walked the paper back across the room and took up her tray of hospital good again, settling it over me. "Has anyone else, what?:
"Been by," I mumbled. "To visit."
Grams gave me a knowing smile. "A charming young woman with a mouth that could give a sailor a heart attack? A sweet little one who brought you flowers? The one who spent half a day chasing doctors and nurses around, demanding answers about your condition? Or, by any chance are you referring to a very well - mannered Southern boy? — Alexandra Bracken

I respect the social graces enormously. How to pass the food. Don't yell from one room to another. Don't go through a closed door without a knock. Open the doors for the ladies. All these millions of simple household behaviors make for a better life. We can't live in constant rebellion against our parents - it's just silly. I'm very well mannered. It's not an abstract thing. It's a shared language of expectations. — Jack Nicholson

The evidence all points to the fact that we occupy not a well-mannered clockwork universe, but a destructive, violent, and hostile zoo. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

If she was pretty and well-mannered, a daughter could marry up; a son could not. A son needed his own prospects. — G. Willow Wilson

I no longer find such pleasure in that preeminently good society, of which I was once so fond. It seems to me that beneath a cloak of clever talk it proscribes all energy, all originality. If you are not a copy, people accuse you of being ill-mannered. — Stendhal

My rules are simple and clear. We must dispense with insincere politeness- that vapid veneer of untruth that smothers London drawing rooms. Our well-mannered social deceit must not die a private death but a court-ordered hanging in the public square. The archaic animal that is left will be a dangerous and hot-blooded thing. Unruly and impossible to predict. But alive. — Priya Parmar

I'm a mild-mannered person. — Daniel Silva

It took me twenty years to get Steven Parrino's work. From the time I first saw his art, in the mid-eighties, I almost always dismissed it as mannered, Romantic, formulaic, conceptualist-formalist heavy-metal boy-art abstraction. — Jerry Saltz

Be an example to your men, in your duty and in private life. Never spare yourself, and let the troops see that you don'tin your endurance of fatigue and privation. always be tactful and well-mannered and teach your subordinates to do the same. Avoid excessive sharpness or harshness of voice, which usually indicates the man who has shortcomings of his own to hide. — Erwin Rommel

The poor gentleman has no way of showing that he is a gentleman but by virtue, by being affable, well-bred, courteous, gentle-mannered, and kindly, not haughty, arrogant, or censorious, but above all by being charitable; for by two maravedis given with a cheerful heart to the poor, he will show himself as generous as he who distributes alms with bell-ringing, and no one that perceives him to be endowed with the virtues I have named, even though he know him not, will fail to recognise and set him down as one of good blood; and it would be strange were it not so; praise has ever been the reward of virtue, and those who are virtuous cannot fail to receive commendation. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Love is ill-mannered; it can knock on your heart early, stay late, and leave without saying goodbye. — Matshona Dhliwayo

If you are well-mannered towards those whose views are similar to yours, you may be said to exhibit a fairly good character. But, if you behave properly wit those holding divergent views from you or who criticize you, then you deserve to be credited with having an excellent character. (p. 99) — Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

There's the dual challenge of wanting to speak from an authentic place, and then being able to be honest about it. Even in the most mannered art, I think that's what people value, is a voice that comes from a real place. — John Darnielle

I was stark raving mad, and my family was too polite to mention it. That's what living with the Yamanis does to people. They get so well-mannered they won't mention you're crazy. — Tamora Pierce

I prefer to leave standing up, like a well-mannered guest at a party. — Leontyne Price

Through the early 1930s, Barbara Stanwyck established her reputation in a field overflowing with other young Broadway starlets: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, Katharine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, Joan Blondell. Barbara was lower-keyed and less mannered than Davis and Hepburn; less glamorous than Colbert. She was "real," and she also proved to be the personification of no-nonsense professionalism, making her popular with directors and coworkers alike. — Eve Golden

Tate practically raised you from what I hear. You love him, don't you?"
Her face closed up. "For all the good it will ever do me, yes," she said softly.
"He won't have the excuse of pure Lakota blood much longer," he advised.
"I'm not holding out for miracles anymore," she vowed. "I'm going to stop wanting what I can never have. From now on, I'll take what I can get from life and be satisfied with it. Tate will have to find his own way."
"That's sour grapes," he observed.
"You bet it is. What do you want me to do to help?"
"It's dangerous," he pointed out, hesitating as he considered her youth. "I don't know ... "
"I'm a card-carrying archeologist," she reminded him. "Haven't you ever watched an Indiana Jones movies? We're all like that," she told him with a wicked grin. "Mild-mannered on the outside and veritable world-tamers inside. I can get a whip and a fedora, too, if you like," she added. — Diana Palmer

What happened?" Lillian asked as Daisy walked into the Marsden parlor. She was reclining on the settee with a periodical. "You look as if you've been run over by a carriage."
"I had an encounter with an ill-mannered pig, actually. — Lisa Kleypas

Saddened by the misfortune of the Jews, remembering his friendship with Christians, increasingly mannered and affected as time went on for reasons to be revealed in due course, he now looked like a pre-Raphaelite worm on to which hairs had been indecently grafted, like threads in the depths of an opal. — Marcel Proust

Before Westcliff could launch into an unwanted diatribe regarding Annabelle, Simon sought to distract him. "You don't seem to rub on well with Miss Bowman," he remarked.
As a diversionary tactic, the mention of Lillian Bowman was supremely effective.
Westcliff responded with a surly grunt. "The ill-mannered brat dared to imply that Miss Peyton's mishap was my fault," he said, pouring a brandy for himself.
Simon raised his brows. "How could it be your fault?"
"Miss Bowman seems to think that, as their host, it was my responsibility to ensure that my estate wasn't 'overrun with a plague of poisonous vipers,' as she put it."
"How did you reply?"
"I pointed out to Miss Bowman that the guests who choose to remain clothed when they venture out of doors don't usually seem to get bitten by adders."
Simon couldn't help grinning at that. — Lisa Kleypas

And the people love a well-mannered killer. — Michael R. Fletcher

I think they (Thatcher protesters) ought to be grateful for the fact that the people who hold our (pro-Thatcher) views, and who are not mindless bigots, won't allow their behaviour to provoke us into words or behaviour which would could be seen as a breach of the peace. Hopefully, those of us who admire Margaret Thatcher are too well-mannered to fall for the bait. — Norman Tebbit

Mild-mannered Abe, however, is Tarzan of the traffic jungle. He knows the strict species pecking order: pedestrians are on the bottom and run out of the way of everything, bicycles make way to cycle-rickshaws, which give way to auto-rickshaws, which stop for cars, which are subservient to trucks. Buses stop for one thing and one thing only. Not customers - they jump on while the buses are still moving. The only thing that can stop a bus is the king of the road, the lord of the jungle and the top dog.
The holy cow. — Sarah Macdonald

I don't understand why people don't use improvisation, especially in comedy films, but also, for me, you get more naturalism, and that's why I like the naturalistic performances and strange rhythms and the way that people genuinely interact captured rather than sort of very mannered performances. — Alice Lowe

Am I really so bad-mannered, conceited, headstrong, pushing, stupid, lazy, etc., etc., as they all say? Oh, of course not. I have my faults, just like everyone else, I kniw that, but they thoroughly exaggerate everything. — Anne Frank

They all shared a certain coolness, a cruel, mannered charm which was not modern in the least but had the strange cold breath of the ancient world : they were magnificent creatures, such eyes, such hands, such looks - sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic ora ferebat. — Donna Tartt

A great man who is vicious will only be a great doer of evil, and a rich man who is not liberal will be only a miserly beggar; for the possessor of wealth is not made happy by possessing it, but by spending it - and not by spending as he please but by knowing how to spend it well. To the poor gentleman there is no other way of showing that he is a gentleman than by virtue, by being affable, well-bred, courteous, gentle-mannered and helpful; not haughty, arrogant or censorious, but above all by being charitable ... and no one who sees him adorned with the virtues I have mentioned, will fail to recognize and judge him, though he know him not, to be of good stock. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Control the senses, practice equanimity. Live by disciplinary rules. Associate with good friends who are not lazy and live purely. Be courteous and well-mannered, and thus, full of joy. Put an end to suffering. — Thich Nhat Hanh

My family tree spreads wide as well. I am a great ape, and you are a great ape, and so are chimpanzees and orangutans and bonobos, all of us distant and distrustful cousins.
I know this is troubling.
I too find it hard to believe there is a connection across time and space, linking me to a race of ill-mannered clowns.
Chimps. There's no excuse for them. — Katherine Applegate

It is remarkable that a fist-gnawingly dire England performance still has the power to shock, when in some ways this one had all the exquisite unpredictability of Norman Wisdom approaching a banana skin in the immediate vicinity of a swimming pool...
The England shirt is the precise opposite of a superhero costume, turning men with extraordinary abilities into mild-mannered guys next door. Were Stephen Fry to pull it on, he would struggle to string a sentence together. Were Lucian Freud to slip it over his head he would turn his easel round to reveal a childlike scribble of a cat. — Marina Hyde

To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered. — Voltaire

That's how I read the Bible. There are more than sixty references in Scripture to celebration and all but one or two of them are positive. Most of them are divine commands to go and party. Exodus and Deuteronomy and Numbers read like a string of invitations to a nonstop whirlwind of festival: "Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread ... Celebrate the Feast of Harvest ... Celebrate the Feast of Weeks ... Celebrate the Passover ... Celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles ... Celebrate." These were not quiet, sedate, well-mannered little tea parties. They were raucous, shout-at-the-top-of-your-lungs and dance-in-the-streets, weeklong shindigs. The heart of the prodigal home, shouting to His servants, "Bring the fatted calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate!" That's our God. You read this stuff enough, you start to get the sense that God is looking for just about any excuse to fire up the barbecue and invite the neighborhood over. — Mark Buchanan

No use to preach to the working-man courtesy & politeness when at the same time the working-man is not given working conditions under which he can stay polite and soft-mannered. — B. Traven

All things considered, it had been his home, and the set of kindly, well-meaning, gentle-mannered people driven to death or exile for the sole crime of their existing, was the set to which he too belonged. His dark youthful broodings, the romantic - and let me add, somewhat artificial - passion for his mother's land, could not, I am sure, exclude real affection for the country where he had been born and bred. — Vladimir Nabokov

On occasions the person may appear ill-mannered; for example, one young man with Asperger's Syndrome wanted to attract his mother;s attention while she was talking to a group of her friends, and loudly said, 'Hey, you!', apparently unaware of the more appropriate means of addressing his mother in public. The child, being impulsive and not aware of the consequences, says the first thing that comes into their mind. Strangers may consider the child to be rude, inconsiderate or spoilt, giving the parents a withering look and assuming the unusual social behavior is a result of parental incompetence. They may comment, 'Well, if I had him for two weeks he would be a different child.' The parents' reaction may be that they would gladly let them have the child, as they need a rest, and to prove a point. — Tony Attwood

[I did] Some [reading to prep for Expelled]. I read one book cover to cover, From Darwin to Hitler , and that was a very interesting book
one of these rare books I wish had been even longer. It's about how Darwin 's theory
supposedly concocted by this mild-mannered saintly man, with a flowing white beard like Santa Claus
led to the murder of millions of innocent people. — Ben Stein

I'd discovered, after a lot of extreme apprehension about what spoons to use, that if you do something incorrect at table with a certain arrogance, as if you knew perfectly well you were doing it properly, you can get away with it and nobody will think you are bad-mannered or poorly brought up. They will think you are original and very witty. — Sylvia Plath

I wish I could convey the perfection of a seal slipping into water or a spider monkey swinging from point to point or a lion merely turning its head. But language founders in such seas. Better to picture it in your head if you want to feel it ... I spent more hours than I can count a quiet witness to the highly mannered, manifold expressions of life that grace our planet. It is something so bright, loud, weird and delicate as to stupefy the senses. — Yann Martel

I had always thought myself to be a man of moderate passions indistinguishable in that respect from most Englishmen born to our logical and mannered times. — K.W. Jeter

Well-mannered children could be conceived if the parents were well-mannered. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

WHITLOCK 2 (to VRIL):
In my humble opinion,
Be off to oblivion!
Their tears crocodilian
Will dry here below.

Your act is vaudevillian,
Your faults are octillion!
Your manners reptilian
Would shock a Brazilian!
Alas, but a Vrillian's a pitiful beau!
A despicable, fickle, unprintable foe!

LADY CADENCE: (still in the grip of VRIL) Mr. Cartwright, my most mannered acquaintances hail from Brazil.

WHITLOCK 2: My apologies, Your Ladyship. It's a difficult rhyme. — Bill Powell

What writing practice, like Zen practice does is bring you back to the natural state of mind ... The mind is raw, full of energy, alive and hungry. It does not think in the way we were brought up to think-well-mannered, congenial. — Natalie Goldberg

Am I not sensitive, clever, well-mannered, considerate, passionate, charming, as kind as I'm handsome and heir to a throne? — Stephen Sondheim

A mild mannered accountant are y'? I'd say you're more like a wolf in sheep's clothing. — Lloyd Tosoff

Let me tell you how the French seduce you. They are the most bloody seductive people on Earth. They are charming, they are well-mannered and they praise and flatter you. — Anita Roddick

I mean, every novel's a historical novel anyway. But calling something a historical novel seems to put mittens on it, right? It puts manners on it. And you don't want your novels to be mannered. — Colum McCann

Thinking about him requires so little effort that she can do it while performing mindless activities. Soaping the dishes, replaiting Clare Kelley's hair, drying the dishes. The part of her brain that plays his ongoing reel is unconnected to the neurons and synapses that control things like conscious thought and logic. Ben turning to her at a party. Ben turning to her. Ben turning. What human being deserves to be the nucleus of such high esteem? Certainly not Benjamin, middle name Hal, last name Allen. Five-nine in boots. Who has a car that doesn't start on cold mornings, an unfinished screenplay, a law degree he doesn't use, a romantic's tendency to save movie stubs, and a mannered, unsmiling wife. — Marie-Helene Bertino

We ate in fret-filled silence until Ophie said, "Okay, enough of that feeling down in the dumps. We are going to put on our best clothes and go to church. We will sing. We will praise the Lord. We will celebrate Miss Delia's life. So you two put a smile on your faces. Well-mannered ladies know that a funeral provides us the opportunity to comfort the living. There'll be plenty of time to mourn the dead for years to come." I — Terrie Farley Moran

On the surface I'm a mild mannered person, that's until you scratch the animal inside. — Ray Davies

Even the mild-mannered Sophia Western of Tom Jones and Richardson's annoyingly pious Clarissa Harlow distinguished themselves by saying no to the authority of their parents, their societies, and norms and demanding to marry the man they chose. Perhaps it was exactly because women were deprived of so much in their real lives that they became so subversive in the realm of fiction, refusing the authority imposed on them, breaking out of old structures, not submitting. — Azar Nafisi

The baron reminds me of someone, but I can't quite put my finger on who it is," Ramsey remarked.
"I swear my own father never talked to me the way Gillian's uncle just did."
"Your father died before you were old enough to know him."
"It was humiliating, damn it. He sure as certain wasn't what I expected. The way Gillian talked about him, I pictured a mild-mannered gentleman. She thinks he's ... gentle. Is the woman blind? How in God's name can she love such a crotchety old ... "
Ramsey's head snapped up, and he suddenly burst into laughter, breaking Brodick's train of thought. "It's you."
"What?"
"Morgan ... he reminds me of you. My God, Gillian married a man just like her uncle. Look at the baron and you'll see yourself in twenty years."
"Are you suggesting I'm going to become a belligerent, foul-tempered old man?"
"Hell, you're already belligerent and foul-tempered. No wonder she fell in love with you," he drawled — Julie Garwood

I think what is British about me is my feelings and awareness of others and their situations. English people are always known to be well mannered and cold but we are not cold - we don't interfere in your situation. If we are heartbroken, we don't scream in your face with tears - we go home and cry on our own. — Michael Caine

I was mild-mannered, wore glasses, was very shy with women. — Joe Shuster

Playing Super Mario Bros. 2 again, in the two-bedroom apartment I share with my wife, is to re-learn the productivity of cussing. Playing any game, for that matter, bends my larynx into the saltiest shapes imaginable. With time comes an understanding that the game on your screen is nothing compared to life's true challenges. Still, with each fall down a pit or graze of a fireball-spitting plant, my mild-mannered speech pattern gives way to filth. Super Mario Bros. 2 is not even known as a difficult game. But to a player of limited and rusty skills, i.e., your author, it pushes back. — Jon Irwin

A long walk and grooming with a well-mannered dog is a Zen experience that leaves you refreshed and in a creative frame of mind. — Dean Koontz

American Morons is the work of an original. Like Hitchcock or Ramsey Campbell, the style is precise, alert, and well-mannered, inviting us to enter Hirshberg's private world so that he may lock the door behind us. If there is anyone in contemporary fiction worth watching, it is Glen Hirshberg. — Dennis Etchison

Anyone becomes mannered if you think too much about what other people think. — Kim Gordon

Thus, thus, truly thus: a mind so blind and sick, so base and ill-mannered, desires to lie hidden, but does not wish that anything should be hidden from it. — Jeff Wheeler

But then twitching nervously in the presence of a librarian wasn't an uncommon response - librarians, like ministers of religion, and poets, and people with serious mental health disorders, can make people nervous. Librarians possess a kind of occult power, an aura. They could silence people with just a glance. At least, they did in Israel's fantasies. In Israel's fantasies, librarians were mild-mannered superheroes, with extrasensory perceptions and a highly developed sense of responsibility who demanded respect from everyone they met. In reality, Israel couldn't silence even Mrs Onions on her mobile phone when she was disturbing other readers. — Ian Sansom

Carol and I have found that unless God baptizes us with fresh outpourings of love, we would leave New York City yesterday! We don't live in this crowded, ill-mannered, violent city because we like it. Whenever I meet or read about a guy who has sexually abused a little girl, I'm tempted in my flesh to throw him out a fifth-story window. This isn't an easy place for love to flourish. But Christ died for that man. What could ever change him? What could ever replace the lust and violence in his heart? He isn't likely to read the theological commentaries on my bookshelves. He desperately needs to be surprised by the power of a loving, almighty God. If the Spirit is not keeping my heart in line with my doctrine, something crucial is missing. I can affirm the existence of Jesus Christ all I want, but in order to be effective, he must come alive in my life in a way that even the pedophile, the prostitute, and the pusher can see. — Jim Cymbala