Letitia Baldrige Quotes

Kids today and for the last 20 years have held the fork and knife in unbelievable ways. They hold the fork with a fist and the knife like a saw and they shovel it in. It doesn't matter to them which way they hold their knife and fork. They eat every which way. I'm amazed they get food into their mouths at all.

- Letitia Baldrige

It's nice to compliment people on what they're wearing, but don't make insincere compliments.

- Letitia Baldrige

Good manners are cost effective. They not only increase the quality of life in the workplace, they contribute to employee morale, embellish the company image, and play a major role in generating profit.

- Letitia Baldrige

Writers on etiquette receive a continuous flow of questions on subjects such as 'When is it too early in the season to wear white accessories?' and 'What is the proper gift to send to a family in mourning?'

- Letitia Baldrige

You don't want to work so hard that you can't enjoy your guests.

- Letitia Baldrige

At home, we're listening to TV or playing with our computers, so our entertaining is rusting. We don't know how to be good hosts and guests in business situations.

- Letitia Baldrige

If the flu situation in your town is serious, cancel a large long-awaited party you had scheduled, but promise the guests in an e-mail that you will reschedule the party as soon as possible.

- Letitia Baldrige

President and Mrs. Kennedy would walk into the East Room with their honored guests, preceded by the military color guard, who then posted their flags behind the receiving line. This ceremony never failed to move all of us, no matter how many times the staff witnessed it.

- Letitia Baldrige

Crashing could not be more inconsiderate to a host. It is a negative act because hosts likely have a particular plan for the event, an intention to move guests' attitudes in a certain direction.

- Letitia Baldrige

What the bride should do is call guests who have young children and say: 'I'd love to have the kids at the wedding, but we won't have room. Would you get a baby sitter, and when we get back from our honeymoon, we'll have you guys over?'

- Letitia Baldrige

The whole art of flirting has simply disappeared. This probably will do further damage. If we're going to become so uptight that we can't say nice things to each other, then we've had it!

- Letitia Baldrige

Backpacks are obtrusive. They're great for school kids and mountaineers, but a woman is supposed to look enticing and glamorous at night. They obscure one of a woman's most erogenous zones, the nape of her neck. I suppose they're good if you want to keep men away.

- Letitia Baldrige

I'm a businesswoman, and Ms. is an appropriate form of address.

- Letitia Baldrige

The Kennedys tried to avoid using the big U-shaped table, but when they couldn't, they had several tricks - including keeping the flowers simple - to keep it from appearing overly stiff and formal.

- Letitia Baldrige

Chivalry isn't dead. It's just no longer gender-based.

- Letitia Baldrige

I was considered the luckiest of all the female gypsies since I landed the job as social secretary to Ambassador and Mrs. David Bruce at the American Embassy.

- Letitia Baldrige

Nothing ruins the flow of conversation more quickly than refusing a compliment you have just received. Never disagree with something nice that is said to you or about you.

- Letitia Baldrige

Going to a party uninvited always has been a negative action. It never has been acceptable. At the very least, it upsets kitchen preparations, parking arrangements, and even details such as space for hanging coats and depositing dripping umbrellas.

- Letitia Baldrige

Before the Kennedys were elected, there had been older Presidents. Then here was this devastatingly attractive young couple with two beautiful children. They were so intelligent, graceful, gracious and funny. They enjoyed life so much. That's what caught America's eye.

- Letitia Baldrige

Business colleagues who have not seen each other for a long time but who have a good relationship can always shake hands warmly and grab each other's right upper arm or shoulder with their free left hand. Men and women executives should not kiss each other in public.

- Letitia Baldrige

Europeans are easily offended by errors in their titles or full names. Their exasperation is equal to that shown by Americans when the department store fouls up their bills.

- Letitia Baldrige

For every step forward in electronic communications, we've taken two steps back in humanity. People know how to use a computer and answering machines but have forgotten how to connect with one another. Our society is unraveling. We're too self-obsessed.

- Letitia Baldrige

For years, people have re-dialed when the line was busy. They waited their turn. When I'm put on hold, I always hope that as my revenge, their other call will be someone wanting to sell them something.

- Letitia Baldrige

If you really screw up, send roses.

- Letitia Baldrige

If you are someone's guest on a corporate jet, the most important thing to remember is not just to be on time, but to be early. If you hold up the departure of the jet by as much as 10 minutes, you may cause the plane to wait in line for another hour or two before obtaining new clearance.

- Letitia Baldrige

If golfers know they look good, they will play better. I think that is valid for men and women.

- Letitia Baldrige

Look at all those unattractive people talking about depraved things all day long on TV talk shows. People can talk about themselves, yet the art of conversation, which has to do with sharing, is disappearing. I feel as though I am chasing a runaway locomotive.

- Letitia Baldrige

Arranging an official dinner in an embassy is a little like writing a script for a play. The prolog is the guest list, often the most difficult part of the whole creative operation.

- Letitia Baldrige

Most people don't know how to take compliments. That's the biggest problem in America - we're hesitant to give compliments and embarrassed at getting them.

- Letitia Baldrige

We have a lot of societal problems that we have to fix in the 1990s.

- Letitia Baldrige

A real thank you does not come by e-mail. They come in the mail in an envelope. And what comes out of an envelope is a beautiful thing to touch and to handle and to pass around for everyone to read.

- Letitia Baldrige

I saw an e-mail from one guy who's about 23 to one of peers. His parting sign-off was 'Don't let the bedbugs bite.' Now that's really poetic.

- Letitia Baldrige

When writing a thank-you if you've had lunch with someone downtown, send an e-mail. If somebody is giving you a dinner party in his or her home and all the work that takes, that person deserves a written thank-you.

- Letitia Baldrige

Make people have a smile when they finish your e-mail.

- Letitia Baldrige

We are not passing values on to our children. We are not sitting down at the dinner table talking about the tiny things that add up to caring human beings.

- Letitia Baldrige

I've become a master of the apology.

- Letitia Baldrige

If you're making a social call, don't call past 8 P.M. The evening is a time when people need a respite from their work - a time to unwind, uninterrupted.

- Letitia Baldrige

A really first-class company uses really fine stationery.

- Letitia Baldrige

An excellent wine, someone's best attempt at cooking, and the candles and flowers on the table can turn the simplest dinner into an unforgettably romantic event.

- Letitia Baldrige

A man or woman can be known and respected for good taste, regardless of job or income level, if they make good choices in clothes, have good table manners, are kind and organize their home to look warm, welcoming, clean, and appropriate to their station in life.

- Letitia Baldrige

When you pass 70, you forget your enemies. You think about the nice people instead.

- Letitia Baldrige

I believe in teaching manners without causing fisticuffs.

- Letitia Baldrige

It's stylish to have people over. But unstylish to make them bring food. It's so tacky, making everybody appear at the door with a dish. Better to order in, use a caterer or bring prepared food into your kitchen.

- Letitia Baldrige

When somebody throws something out the car window, honk at them, but don't give them the finger. We've got to temper our negative feelings about people who desecrate the environment.

- Letitia Baldrige

There is so much bad manners and oafishness in large corporations.

- Letitia Baldrige

Administrations had come and gone in Pennsylvania Avenue, but many old entertaining traditions had survived - thru habit and not thru merit.

- Letitia Baldrige

We have lost the art of conversation. People are shy and don't know how to approach other people, and they are missing opportunities for relationships. And no one's entertaining at home anymore. They're not having people over for dinner.

- Letitia Baldrige

It's very important with these young people who are graduating and getting married to write thank-you notes.

- Letitia Baldrige

We ought to be vigilantes for kindness and consideration.

- Letitia Baldrige

I'm for anything that teaches consideration and kindness. If one can teach one's son to dance with the ugliest little girl in the room, that's the best lesson they can ever learn.

- Letitia Baldrige

Everybody forgets names and faces, and it's just inconsiderate to expect someone who isn't your boss or your sister-in-law to know exactly who you are.

- Letitia Baldrige

You don't need the White House to please people. You can be 24, earning $22,000 a year, and have people over to your tiny apartment. It's all about sharing and thinking about what will make others happy.

- Letitia Baldrige

I don't care what your politics are, I would wager that if you asked any American woman which administration would she have most liked to work for as social secretary, she would pick Jacqueline Kennedy's White House as the place to be.

- Letitia Baldrige

To have people to the White House and worry about the price of things is laughable.

- Letitia Baldrige

You'd be surprised how much easier it is to conduct business over tea than over lunch or dinner in a bustling restaurant.

- Letitia Baldrige

I've had a charmed life.

- Letitia Baldrige

The polished executive is ultimately the happy executive who can walk gracefully through life.

- Letitia Baldrige

I'm all for Hillary Clinton. I want her to avoid the barbs of women who hate women who work. But I'm known as a Republican in Washington. I'm probably the last person she'd call.

- Letitia Baldrige

The First Lady has a lot of power. I hope Hillary Clinton realizes that.

- Letitia Baldrige

CEOs are called by their first names by young whippersnappers. That makes everybody uncomfortable. We need order and structure back in the workplace.

- Letitia Baldrige

The custom of going to a party only when we have been invited is a necessary, attractive, decent way for a party to evolve.

- Letitia Baldrige

We're a nation of latchkey children. Manners start at home, and no one is at home teaching manners so that children have respect for others.

- Letitia Baldrige

I don't ever knock anybody; that's bad manners.

- Letitia Baldrige

Manners make the world work. They're not only based on kindness but also efficiency. When people know what to do, the world is smoother. When no one knows what to do, it's chaos.

- Letitia Baldrige

Manners are nothing more than thinking about somebody else.

- Letitia Baldrige

That's how a nation's manners are going to be taught - from watching others' behavior and learning from the effects of that behavior.

- Letitia Baldrige

For every rude executive who makes it to the top, there are nine successful executives with good manners.

- Letitia Baldrige

Doubleday is used to my talking about manners because I am, after all, known for that, and that's my persona.

- Letitia Baldrige

Knowing when and where to sit is something every young executive should learn. A junior person who comes barging into a room and takes any seat he wants catches the disapproving eye of senior management.

- Letitia Baldrige

A bride is a bride the first time around. The white dress and the white veil are symbolic. So many people are breaking the rules that people don't know what the rules are.

- Letitia Baldrige

At tea time, all the noise, greed and aggressiveness of the '80s can be drowned out. For 45 minutes, anyway.

- Letitia Baldrige

If you care enough to look right, you care enough to act right. And vice versa.

- Letitia Baldrige

All of the First Ladies were good, creative and strong. I've always said they should be paid.

- Letitia Baldrige

Jeans of any sort should not be worn in nice restaurants. They pollute the landscape. They should also not be worn in the workplace if no other workers wear them. However, if your office is casual, go for it.

- Letitia Baldrige

The '80s have not been a gracious decade, and people are seeking ways to be nice to each other.

- Letitia Baldrige

Go to any bookstore, and you'll see thousands of books on etiquette, which suggests there's a lot of self-help going on. There is hope.

- Letitia Baldrige

It behooves everyone to move forward, think forward.

- Letitia Baldrige

If you take five taxis a day, one driver will be nasty, and the other four are perfectly nice. You remember the nasty one. But you should remember the four who were nice.

- Letitia Baldrige

We need grace in our lives, and I'm not talking about heavenly grace. I'm talking about human grace. We should try and be warm and friendly.

- Letitia Baldrige

Jeans should never be worn to someone's home if you are having dinner there.

- Letitia Baldrige

If somebody is disrespecting somebody, we should step in - even at the risk of getting slugged over the head.

- Letitia Baldrige

There are major CEOs who do not know how to hold a knife and fork properly, but I don't worry about that as much as the lack of kindness.

- Letitia Baldrige

I think that what we should do is have short, clipped conversations on the telephone so someone can always get us, not talking about inane stuff and having someone trying to get you. I also think we've just got to be more sensitive toward other people and not call them at night if you know they've been working.

- Letitia Baldrige

I talk about beepers going off in the middle of a concert and people being late and not apologizing, and people not RSVP-ing, and adult children going back to live with their parents, which we didn't have in the '60s and '70s.

- Letitia Baldrige

Nothing gets on other people's nerves at the office more than a whistler. And the sad part is, these whistlers don't know they're doing it. Someone should, tactfully, tell the whistler how much it disrupts the office environment.

- Letitia Baldrige

When in doubt, look at what everyone else is doing.

- Letitia Baldrige

The best thing we can do to save the planet is set a good example for our kids at home.

- Letitia Baldrige

When someone is wearing a dress that makes her look fat, don't say 'That's a great dress.' It always comes off badly.

- Letitia Baldrige

I've had three broken legs and two knee replacements. But I'm very good at apres golf.

- Letitia Baldrige

Politeness decrees that you must listen to be kind; intelligence decrees that you must listen to learn.

- Letitia Baldrige

Tea time is a chance to slow down, pull back and appreciate our surroundings.

- Letitia Baldrige

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

- Letitia Baldrige

More young people are aware of the need for thank yous and aware of the tremendous impression they make.

- Letitia Baldrige

One cannot reject an entire nation because of the politics of its leader.

- Letitia Baldrige

I have grandchildren who are going to need every cent I make.

- Letitia Baldrige

We need to reach out - spend more time together.

- Letitia Baldrige

People are less grateful than they used to be.

- Letitia Baldrige