Dining Decorum Quotes

I warn against the tyranny of the majority of the people with good table manners.

Never laughing too loudly in a restaurant no matter how good the joke.

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.

You can fake your way to the table, but ultimately you have to learn how to eat.

Eating American-style, you put the knife down and clang. Continental is silent and efficient.

He begged to know to which of his fair cousins the excellency of its cookery was owing. Briefly forgetting her manners, Mary grabbed her fork and leapt from her chair onto the table. Lydia, who was seated nearest her, grabbed her ankle before she could dive at Mr. Collins and, presumably, stab him about the head and neck for such an insult.

To speake of an Vsurer at the table marres the wine.

I hate a man who swallows [his food], affecting not to know what he is eating. I suspect his taste in higher matters.

Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs.

Smacking or chewing really loud and obnoxiously at dinner is a no-no. You know, if we're eating tacos, and I know we gotta use our hands, but if it gets all over your face, it's not sexy to me. That's not a good look.

My notion of an elegant table is you don't leave the knife sticking out of the mayonnaise jar.

I have but one rule at my table. You may leave your cabbage, but you'll sit still and behave until I've eaten mine.

Good manners: The noise you don't make when you're eating soup.

When I was little, my mother taught me how to use a fork and knife. The trouble is that Mother forget to teach me how to stop using them!

Oh, I'd never put my elbows on the table.

One of the rudest things you can do, food-wise, is to stare at someone in the act of eating. It draws attention to the unseemly fact that eating is a bodily function - like animals, we are trapped by our hungers, but we do our best to disguise them with such civilized props as menus and forks.

He that is angry at a feast is rude.

I don't like people's table manners. That really puts you off eating food.