A Gentleman in Moscow

by Amor Towles

After all, what can a first impression tell us about someone we’ve just met for a minute in the lobby of a hotel? For that matter, what can a first impression tell us about anyone? Why, no more than a chord can tell us about Beethoven, or a brushstroke about Botticelli. By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration—and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour.

If such a slight change in temperature was all it took to transform the life of a public square, why should we think the course of human history any less susceptible?

“Young women only die of broken hearts in novels, Charles. She died of scarlet fever.”

That sense of loss is exactly what we must anticipate, prepare for, and cherish to the last of our days; for it is only our heartbreak that finally refutes all that is ephemeral in love.

Nina Kulikova always was and would be a serious soul in search of serious ideas to be serious about.

the Confederacy of the Humbled.

Good God, he thought. Is it possible? Already? At the age of forty-eight? “Alexander Rostov, could it be that you have become settled in your ways?”

If you are ever in doubt, just remember that unlike adults, children want to be happy. So they still have the ability to take the greatest pleasure in the simplest things.” By way of example, the seamstress placed something small and seemingly insignificant in the Count’s hand with an assurance and a few words of instruction.

“In fact, right from the first line . . . Wait. Where is it? Here we are: There is not, I think, a single country in the civilized world where less attention is paid to philosophy than in the United States. Ha! That should tell us a thing or two.”

For with cinema, the Yanks had apparently discovered how to placate the entire working class at the cost of a nickel a week.

These are the greatest of conveniences, Anushka—and at one time, I had them all. But in the end, it has been the inconveniences that have mattered to me most.”

For what matters in life is not whether we receive a round of applause; what matters is whether we have the courage to venture forth despite the uncertainty of acclaim.”