Mardy Grothe - Neverisms

A similar quotation, never formally verified, has long been attributed to the educator Maria Montessori: “Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.”

Never marry a girl of a mocking spirit.

Raillery, with a woman, is a mark of hell.ALEXANDRE DUMAS fils, in Man-Woman (1872)

Dumas apparently preferred submissive women who didn’t stand up to their husbands, even in jest. Raillery is “good-natured teasing.” Synonyms are banter and badinage .

Never treat a guest like a member of the family—treat him with courtesy.EVAN ESAR

Never judge a man by the opinion his wife has of him.BOB EDWARDS, Canadian journalist and humorist

Edwards also offered these two additional thoughts about spouses:

Never judge a woman by the company she is compelled to entertain.

Never discuss a man with his wife in the presence of company.

When a woman’s husband is under discussion,

she isn’t in a position to say what she really thinks.

I met my wife by breaking two of my rules:

never date a girl seriously that you meet at a nightclub and never date a fan.COREY FELDMAN, on Susie Sprague, a former Playboy model;

the couple met in 2002 and divorced seven years later

Ne’er take a wife till thou hast a house (and a fire) to put her in.BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, in a 1733 Poor Richard’s Almanack

Never let your mom brush your hair when she’s mad at your dad.GALLAGHER

Never argue with your wife about hostility when she’s a certified Freudian.WILLIAM GOLDMAN, on his wife Helen, a child psychiatrist

Never send your children off to school

with a convertible sports car or a credit card.LEWIS GRIZZARD, in It Wasn’t Always Easy,

But I Sure Had Fun (1994)

In this advice to parents of college-bound youth, Grizzard added: “The sports car will break down, and you will have to pay for it to be repaired. A college-age individual with a credit card will wear the writing off the plastic before Christmas break.”

Never tell a young person that something cannot be done.JOHN ANDREW HOLMES, in Wisdom in Small Doses (1927)

Holmes, an American clergyman, continued: “God may have been waiting for centuries for somebody ignorant enough of the impossible to do that thing.”

Never get married in the morning—

you never know who you might meet that night.PAUL HORNUNG

During his playing days with the Green Bay Packers, Hornung did and said many things to cultivate an image of a playboy and a ladies’ man. When he finally married Patricia Roeder in 1967, he violated his own rule and got married in the morning. In trademark fashion, though, he had a wisecracking explanation: “If it didn’t work out, I didn’t want to blow the whole day.”

Never tell a secret to a bride or a groom;

wait until they have been married longer.EDGAR WATSON HOWE

The point, of course, is that newlyweds are so wildly in love that they share everything with each other. In such a state, neither person could be trusted to keep a secret. After a few years of marriage, though, Howe wryly suggests that secrets are safe because the husband and wife have likely stopped talking to each other.

Never pretend to listen.PHOEBE HUTCHINSON, in Honeymooners Forever (2007)

Hutchinson, an Australian housewife and mother of two, examined the lives of happily married couples as a way to rejuvenate her own marriage. She summarized her findings in a twelve-step guide to marital happiness. She also advised:

Never argue in front of children.

Never have long silent treatments.

Never let your loved one leave your side without a kiss.

Never let your anger and resentment build to the point where you

need to complain about your partner to every person you meet.

Never bad-mouth your ex-husband to your kids.

Because if you do, then you ruin the moment

when they figure it out all by themselves.CORY KAHANEY, a finalist (and ultimate runner-up)

in the first season of Last Comic Standing in 2003

Never try to fool children.

They expect nothing and therefore see everything.HARVEY KEITEL, as Harry Houdini,

in the 1997 film Fairytale: A True Story

Never praise a sister to a sister,

in the hope of your compliments reaching the proper ears,

and so preparing the way for you later on.RUDYARD KIPLING, in Plain Tales from the Hills (1888)

This advice to suitors comes from the story “False Dawn.” Kipling went on to explain: “Sisters are women first, and sisters afterwards.” His point is quite sexist, of course, but there are still many people who believe that female siblings are so competitive that one sister would never pass along a positive thing she heard said about another sister.

Never try to win an argument.

A common destroyer of marriages is seeing the relationship

as a competition rather than a cooperation.JOE KITA, in Guy Q: 1,305 Totally Essential Secrets

You Either Know, or You Don’t (2003)

Never inform your spouse of your intention to divorce

by having a lawyer send over papers.MEL KRANTZLER

The pioneering divorce counselor added, perhaps unnecessarily: “This is a red-hot poker, likely to incur bitter retaliation.” Krantzler authored numerous books on divorce and marriage. His Creative Divorce (1975) became an international bestseller.

Never allow your child to call you by your first name.

He hasn’t known you long enough.FRAN LEBOWITZ, in Social Studies (1977)

Never marry unless you can do so into a family

that will enable your children to feel proud of both sides of the house.ROBERT E. LEE, in an 1856 letter to a friend

Never imagine that children who don’t say, or ask, don’t know.ROSAMOND LEHMANN, in her 1967 autobiography

The Swan in the Evening: Fragments of an Inner Life

Never put your baby’s length on a birth announcement.

It’s a baby, not a marlin.CAROL LEIFER, in When You Lie About Your Age,

the Terrorists Win (2009)

Never change diapers in mid-stream.DON MARQUIS

Marquis is usually described as an American humorist, but at various stages of his life he was a novelist, playwright, newspaper columnist, and cartoonist. He is best remembered for “Archy and Mehitabel,” a cartoon strip about a cockroach and a cat. Archy the cockroach, who was a poet in a previous life, left free-verse poems on Marquis’s typewriter by jumping from key to key. The poems were all typed in lowercase because Archy could not operate the shift key.

Never tell your grandchildren, “When I was your age . . .”DAVID L. MCKENNA, in Retirement Is Not for Sissies (2008)

McKenna also offered a number of other admonitions for those in their senior years:

Never go to Costco without a list.