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“Democracy was supposed to champion freedom of speech, and yet the simple rules of table decorum could clamp down on the rights their forefathers had fought and died for.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

“A thousand years ago the Chinese had an entirely codified kitchen while the French were still gnawing on bones. Chopsticks have been around since the fourth century B.C. Forks didn't show up in England until 1611, and even then they weren't meant for eating but just to hold the meat still while you hacked at it with your knife.”
― Ruth Reichl, Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise

“Worse than talking with a mouthful, is gossiping with a mouthful!”
― Anthony Liccione

“Consideration is the basis of etiquette, and it starts at home. If you can't show consideration to your spouse, child or family member any consideration you show outside is shallow and a farce.”
― Chinha Raheja

“Use your fork.â€�
“N´Ç.â€�
“Gavin, I swear to god, if you—don’t do it. Don’t pick the mashed potatoes up again with your hand.�
He stared at me as he did it anyway. Making sure I was watching, he shoved the food into his mouth again.”
― T.J. Klune, Brothersong

“Never bring a weapon too big to double as a dining utensil to the table when dining with friends.”
― Seanan McGuire, One Salt Sea

“When I am alone, my table manners are rather piggish, but i suppose that's because I don't eat at a table, I eat at my desk. Which could be considered a table, except we tend to define things by their function, and this particular surface is a desk, so perhaps piggish is unfair.”
― Kelli Jae Baeli

“The way you treat your food on your plate is a reflection of the way you treat people in your life. Learning how to dine teaches you not just how to eat but how to treat people.”
― Rajiv Talreja

“it was a point of good manners not to sit with a clique of the same friends all the time, and it meant that conversation at dinner had to be open and general rather than close and gossipy”
― Philip Pullman

“To be at table means that one has removed oneself from business and motion and made a commitment to spend some time over one's meal. One commits oneself not only to time but also to an implicit plan of eating: We sit to eat and not just to feed, and to do so both according to a plan and with others. A decision to have a sit-down meal must precede its preparation, and the preparation is in turn guided by the particular plan that is the menu. Further, to be at table means, whether we know it or not, to make a commitment to form and formality. We agree, tacitly to be sure, to a code of conduct that does not apply when we privately raid the refrigerator or eat on the run or in our cards, or even when we munch sandwiches in front of the television with our buddies who have gathered to watch the Super Bowl. There we eat (or, more accurately, feed) side by side, as at a trough; in contrast, at table we all face not our food but one another. Thus we silently acknowledge our mutual commitment to share not only some food but also commensurate forms of commensal behavior. To be sure, the forms will vary depending on the occasion; the guests, a banquet table at a testimonial dinner, and a picnic table in the park have different degrees and (in part) different kinds of formality, as do also the family breakfast and the family dinner. But in all cases there are forms that operate, regulate, and inform our behavior and that signify our peculiarly human way of meeting necessity.”
― Leon R. Kass, The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature

“I nurse the small fish on my plate. Cassius is already finished with his, always a man of appetites. I'm more practiced than he in the art of self-deprivation at the dinner table, doesn't feel so long ago that I was a knobby-kneed boy sitting at my grandmother's dinner table when she turned her long neck to me and peered down that Peregrine nose, and in a kindly manner, inquired if I intend to sleep out in the gutter instead of in my bed chamber, because by virtue of the fact that I'd eaten three whole tarts, I'd clearly abdicated being a man in favor of being a little pig.”
― Pierce Brown, Iron Gold

“You are a little chubby - doesn't matter. You are a little skinny - doesn't matter. You don't know any table etiquette - doesn't matter. You prefer jeans over tuxedo - doesn't matter. You have tattoos all over your body - doesn't matter. You don't have a tag hanging from your neck saying religious - doesn't matter. What matters is, how you behave with those whom the society has placed at the bottom of its egotistical, megalomaniacal and barbaric hierarchy of class and pedigree.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Making Britain Civilized: How to Gain Readmission to The Human Race

“Food is dear to everyone's heart, so the first golden rule of table manners is respect.”
― Cristina Ho

“A lot of people who behave well at the table do so only when a special guest is around.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Night of a Thousand Thoughts