Amy Vanderbilt Quotes

United States, Author
July 22, 1908 – December, 27, 1974.

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 it being considered a standard of etiquette writing.

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

Amy Vanderbilt
- Woman
- Rule
- Chaperone

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
- Learn
- Thanks
- Concentrate
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
- Live
- May
One face to the world, another at home - makes for misery.

Amy Vanderbilt
- World
- Home
- Face
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
- Grace
- Comfortable
- Flout
Good manners have much to do with the emotions. To make them ring true, one must feel them, not merely exhibit them.

Amy Vanderbilt
- Good
- True
I have no use for people who exhibit manners.

Amy Vanderbilt
- People
- Use
- Manners

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
- Man
- Chance
- Marry
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
- Attention
- Fashion
- Style