“Conversation is a minefield until you learn the conventions, Jane dear.”
“I’ll never learn all the rules,” muttered Jane.
“Yes, you will,” said Phryne. “Then you can bend them.”Kerry Greenwood (b. 1954) Australian author and lawyer
Phryne Fisher No. 13, The Castlemaine Murders, ch. 4 (2003)
(Source)
Quotations about:
social conventions
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Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment. The penalty may be unfair, unrighteous, illogical, and a cruelty; no mater, it will be inflicted, just the same.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Essay (1906), “The Gorky Incident,” Letters from the Earth (c. 1909; pub. 1962) [ed. DeVoto (1939)]
(Source)
Commenting on the eviction of Maxim Gorky from multiple hotels in New York City because the woman he was traveling with was not his wife. Twain was a supporter of Gorky's efforts to foment revolution in Tsarist Russia.
The essay was not published in Twain's lifetime. It's original publication was in the Slavonic and East European Review (1944-08), also edited by DeVoto.
