A Gentleman in Moscow

by Amor Towles

adversity presents itself in many forms; and that if a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them.

But imagining what might happen if one’s circumstances were different was the only sure route to madness.

True, it would not be a new venture for him. But need it be? Could one possibly accuse him of nostalgia or idleness, of wasting his time simply because he had read the story two or three times before?

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

“It is the business of the times to change, Mr. Halecki. And it is the business of gentlemen to change with them.”

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.

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

Life has been generous to me in its variety.”

There are many reasons for ordering a particular bottle of wine. And memories of home are among the best.”

“As both a student of history and a man devoted to living in the present, I admit that I do not spend a lot of time imagining how things might otherwise have been. But I do like to think there is a difference between being resigned to a situation and reconciled to it.”

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.”

For as a people, we Russians have proven unusually adept at destroying that which we have created.”

“There are no more sympathetic souls than strangers.

“I suppose a room is the summation of all that has happened inside it.”

But in the end, it has been the inconveniences that have mattered to me most.”

And do you know, do you know that mankind can live without the Englishman, it can live without Germany, it can live only too well without the Russian man, it can live without science, without BREAD, and it only cannot live without beauty. . . .

does not fulfill one’s potential by listening to Scheherazade in a gilded hall, or by reading the Odyssey in one’s den. One does so by setting forth into the vast unknown—just like Marco Polo when he traveled to China, or Columbus when he traveled to America.”

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.”

by the smallest of one’s actions one can restore some sense of order to the world?

For as it turns out, one can revisit the past quite pleasantly, as long as one does so expecting nearly every aspect of it to have changed.