A really first-class company uses really fine stationery.

- 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 believe in teaching manners without causing fisticuffs.

- 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

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

- 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

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

- 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

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

- Letitia Baldrige

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

- 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

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

- 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

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

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

We ought to be vigilantes for kindness and consideration.

- Letitia Baldrige

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

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

- Letitia Baldrige

If you really screw up, send roses.

- Letitia Baldrige