Rules of Civility Quotes

“In our twenties, when there is still so much time ahead of us, time that seems ample for a hundred indecisions, for a hundred visions and revisions—we draw a card, and we must decide right then and there whether to keep that card and discard the next, or discard the first card and keep the second. And before we know it, the deck has been played out and the decisions we have just made will shape our lives for decades to come.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“It is a lovely oddity of human nature that a person is more inclined to interrupt two people in conversation than one person alone with a book.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“...be careful when choosing what you're proud of--because the world has every intention of using it against you.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“As a quick aside, let me observe that in moments of high emotion....if the next thing you're going to say makes you feel better, then it's probably the wrong thing to say. This is one of the finer maxims that I've discovered in life. And you can have it, since it's been of no use to me.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“If we only fell in love with people who were perfect for us...then there wouldn't be so much fuss about love in the first place.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“That's the problem with living in New York. You've got no New York to run away to.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“Slurring is the cursive of speech...”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“Whatever setbacks he had faced in his life, he said, however daunting or dispiriting the unfolding of events, he always knew that he would make it through, as long as when he woke in the morning he was looking forward to his first cup of coffee. Only decades later would I realize that he had been giving me a piece of advice.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“Right from the first, I could see a calmness in you - that sort of inner tranquility that they write about in books, but that almost no one seems to possess. I was wondering to myself: How does she do that? And I figured it could only come from having no regrets - from having made choices with.... such poise and purpose.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“I know that right choices by definition are the means by which life crystallizes loss.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“Uncompromising purpose and the search for eternal truth have an unquestionable sex appeal for the young and high-minded; but when a person loses the ability to take pleasure in the mundane--in the cigarette on the stoop or the gingersnap in the bath--she had probably put herself in unnecessary danger.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“I've come to realize that however blue my circumstances, if after finishing a chapter of a Dickens novel I feel a miss-my-stop-on-the-train sort of compulsion to read on, then everything is probably going to be just fine.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“Anyone who has ridden the subway twice a day to earn their bread knows how it goes: When you board, you exhibit the same persona you use with your colleagues and acquaintances. You've carried it through the turnstile and past the sliding doors, so that your fellow passengers can tell who you are - cocky or cautious, amorous or indifferent, loaded or on the dole. But you find yourself a seat and the train gets under way; it comes to one station and then another; people get off and others get on. And under the influence of the cradlelike rocking of the train, your carefully crafted persona begins to slip away. The super-ego dissolves as your mind begins to wander aimlessly over your cares and your dreams; or better yet, it drifts into ambient hypnosis, where even cares and dreams recede and the peaceful silence of the cosmos pervades.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“Really. Is there anything nice to be said about other people's vacations? I balled up the letter and threw it in the trash.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“Old times, as my father used to say: If you're not careful, they'll gut you like a fish.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“For however inhospitable the wind, from this vantage point Manhattan was simply so improbable, so wonderful, so obviously full of promise - that you wanted to approach it for the rest of your life without ever quite arriving.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“For better or worse, there are few things so disarming as one who laughs well at her own expense.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“It is a bit of a cliché to characterize life as a rambling journey on which we can alter our course at any given time--by the slightest turn of the wheel, the wisdom goes, we influence the chain of events and thus recast our destiny with new cohorts, circumstances, and discoveries. But for the most of us, life is nothing like that. Instead, we have a few brief periods when we are offered a handful of discrete options. Do I take this job or that job? In Chicago or New York? Do I join this circle of friends or that one, and with whom do I go home at the end of the night? And does one make time for children now? Or later? Or later still?

In that sense, life is less like a journey than it is a game of honeymoon bridge. In our twenties, when there is still so much time ahead of us, time that seems ample for a hundred indecisions, for a hundred visions and revisions--we draw a card, and we must decide right then and there whether to keep that card and discard the next, or discard the first card and keep the second. And before we know it, the deck has been played out and the decisions we have just made shape our lives for decades to come.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“—I probably shouldn’t tell you this, I said.
—Kay-Kay, those are my six favorite words in the English language.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“Because when some incident sheds a favorable light on an old and absent friend, that's about as good a gift as chance intends to offer.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“If you could relive one year in your life, which one would it be? [...] The upcoming one.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“Anyone can buy a car or a night on the town. Most of us shell our days like peanuts. One in a thousand can look at the world with amazement. I don't mean gawking at the Chrysler Building. I'm talking about the wing of a dragonfly. The tale of the shoeshine. Walking through an unsullied hour with an unsullied heart.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“After meeting someone by chance and throwing off a few sparks, can there be any substance to the feeling that you've known each other your whole lives? After those first few hours of conversation, can you really be sure that your connection is so uncommon that it belongs outside the bounds of time and convention?”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“I told him I'd always found the description a little too long on adjectives and a little too short on specifics.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“--You're rather well read for a working-class girl, she said with her back to me.
--Really? I've found thatallmy well-read friends are from the working class.
--Oh my. Why do you think that is? The purity of poverty?
--No. It's just that reading is the cheapest form of entertainment.
--Sex is the cheapest form of entertainment.
--Not in this house.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“I'm willing to be under anything...as long as it isn't somebody's thumb.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“What was your favorite day of the year? The summer solstice. June twenty-first. The longest day of the year.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“I love Val. I love my job and my New York. I have no doubts that they were the right choices for me. And at the same time, I know that right choices by definition are the means by which life crystallizes loss.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“The romantic interplay that we were having wasn't the real game--it was a modified version of the game. It was a version invented for two friends so that they can get some practice and pass the time divertingly while they eat in the station for their train to arrive”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“You see that thirty-year-old blonde next to Jake? That’s his fiancée, Carrie Clapboard. Carrie moved all manner of heaven and earth to get into that chair. And soon she will happily oversee scullery maids and table settings and the reupholstering of antique chairs at three different houses; which is all well and good. But if I were your age, I wouldn’t be trying to figure out how to get into Carrie’s shoes—I’d be trying to figure out how to get into Jake’s.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility