Mardy Grothe - Neverisms

never do a friend a dirty trick,

eat and drink what you feel like when you feel like,

never grow indignant over anything. . .

learn to play at least one musical instrument and then play it only in private,

never allow one’s self even a passing thought of death,

never contradict anyone or seek to prove anything to anyone

unless one gets paid for it in cold, hard coin,

live the moment to the utmost of its possibilities,

treat one’s enemies with polite inconsideration,

avoid persons who are chronically in need,

and be satisfied with life always but never with one’s self.

Never tell anybody anything

unless you’re going to get something better in return.SARA PARETSKY

The words come from V. I. Warshawski, Paretsky’s tough-talking female private eye, in Deadlock (1984). She called it “Rule number something or another.”

Never try to outsmart a woman, unless you are another woman.WILLIAM LYON PHELPS

If you’re a man, the implication should be clear. Phelps, a noted scholar and professor of English at Yale for forty-one years, was famous for his pithy observations and clever remarks.

Never try to make any two people like each other.EMILY POST, in her classic 1922 book on etiquette

Never ask a single woman, “Why aren’t you married?”RONDA RICH

In a 2010 article in Georgia’s Gwinnett Daily Post , Rich said the question can be flattering when asked by a man who is sending the message, “So, how on earth is it that you’re not married yet? What is wrong with the men of this world?” But when a woman, especially a married woman, asks the question, the message is usually, “What’s wrong with you?”

Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

This is a popular quotation, but I have not been able to verify it. Mrs. Roosevelt is one of the most quoted women in history, but many sayings attributed to her are slightly altered versions of what she actually said or wrote. For example, she is also widely quoted as saying, “Never turn your back on life,” but this has not been found in her writings or speeches. The closest I’ve seen appeared in the preface to her 1960 autobiography, where she wrote, “Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”

Never try to look into both eyes at the same time.

Switch your gaze from one eye to the other.

That signals warmth and sincerity.DOROTHY SARNOFF

Sarnoff was a successful opera singer and Broadway star who launched an even more successful second career as a speech coach and image consultant to business executives, celebrities, and politicians. In 2008, her obituary in the New York Times said, “She helped President Carter to lower the wattage of his smile.” Her 1987 book on public speaking was titled Never Be Nervous Again.

Never believe anything a person tells you about himself.

A man comes to believe in the end lies he tells about himself to himself.GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, quoted by Stephen Winsten

in Days with Bernard Shaw (1949)

This is the way the line appeared when it was first presented to the world, but many quotation books present it as “Never believe anything a writer tells you about himself.” The reason for this now seems clear. In Cass Canfield’s Up and Down and Around: A Publisher Recollects the Time of His Life, the longtime president and chairman of Harper & Brothers appears to have misremembered the Shaw remark, presenting it this way: “Never believe anything a writer tells you about himself. A man comes to believe in the end the lies he tells himself about himself.”

Never persist in trying to set people right.HANNAH WHITALL SMITH, in a 1902 letter to a friend

This is the concluding line to one of my all-time favorite quotations. It begins: “The true secret of giving advice is, after you have honestly given it, to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not.” Smith, a lay follower of John Wesley, became a suffragist and temperance activist. She was the mother of the writer Logan Pearsall Smith.

Take as many half-minutes as you can get,

but never talk more than half a minute without pausing

and giving others an opportunity to strike in.JONATHAN SWIFT, attributed by Sydney Smith

The earliest reference to this popular quotation was in an 1870 book, The Wit and Wisdom of the Rev. Sydney Smith. Smith, a prominent English writer and cleric, was well known for his wit. The book describes the saying as “His favourite maxim (copied from Swift).” So far, though, I have been unable to find this observation in Swift’s complete works.

Never use damaging information to invalidate your adversary.JOSEPH TELUSHKIN, in The Book of Jewish Values:

A Day-by-Day Guide to Ethical Living (2000)

Rabbi Telushkin added: “This rule is simple, but breaking it is what so often transforms moderate arguments into furious quarrels, the kind that lead to permanent ruptures between friends or family members.”

Never refuse any advance of friendship,

for if nine out of ten bring you nothing, one alone may repay you.CLAUDINE GUÉRIN DE TENCIN

In the early 1700s, Madame de Tencin maintained a Paris salon whose guests included such famous men as Baron de Montesquieu and Lord Chesterfield. For most women of the era, career options were severely limited, leading some of the most enterprising to form salons as a way to advance their social standing.

Never say a humorous thing to a man who does not possess humor;

he will always use it in evidence against you.HERBERT BEERBOHM TREE

This was reported in a 1956 biography of Tree by Hesketh Pearson. The older brother of the famed English caricaturist Max Beerbohm, Tree was an English actor and theater manager who went on to found the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1904. He may have been familiar with a similar warning advanced two centuries earlier by the esteemed French writer and aphorist Jean de La Bruyère:

Never risk a joke, even the least offensive and the most common,

with a person who is not well-bred, and possessed of sense to comprehend it.

Never rise to speak till you have something to say;

and when you have said it, cease.JOHN WITHERSPOON

Witherspoon was a Scottish Presbyterian minister who was persuaded in 1768 to come to America to serve as president of the struggling College of New Jersey, later renamed Princeton University. As a Scotsman, he was often suspicious of the English crown, and he quickly became sympathetic with the grievances of the colonists. He was the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence.

Never suspect people.

It’s better to be deceived or mistaken, which is only human,

after all, than to be suspicious, which is common.STARK YOUNG, quoting his father

nine

Never Approach a Woman from Behind

Sex, Love & Romance

In August of 2004, celebrity ghostwriter Neil Strauss was thrilled to learn that his most recent literary project—Jenna Jameson’s How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale —had opened at number three on the New York Times bestseller list. The book was his third bestselling “celebrity bio” in six years. At age thirty-five, Strauss was already being described as one of the most successful ghostwriters in publishing history.