No one is more insufferable than he who lacks basic courtesy.

A polite enemy is just as difficult to discredit, as a rude friend is to protect.

...when a phone call competes for attention with a real-world conversation, it wins. Everyone knows the distinctive high-and-dry feeling of being abandoned for a phone call, and of having to compensate - with quite elaborate behaviours = for the sudden half-disappearance of the person we were just speaking to. 'Go ahead!' we say. 'Don't mind us! Oh look, here's a magazine I can read!' When the call is over, other rituals come into play, to minimise the disruption caused and to restore good feeling.

If you are rude, cynical, habitually-sarcastic or pessimistic, your life options are going to be very limited.

Good manners are appreciated as much as bad manners are abhorred.

Courtesy is a silver lining around the dark clouds of civilization; it is the best part of refinement and in many ways, an art of heroic beauty in the vast gallery of man's cruelty and baseness.