Rules of Civility

by Amor Towles

Which is just to say, be careful when choosing what you’re proud of—because the world has every intention of using it against you.

Old times, as my father used to say: If you’re not careful, they’ll gut you like a fish.

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, even if it is a foolish romance:

men and women like Eve with two dramatically different colorings—one which serves to attract and the other which serves to camouflage—and which can be switched at the instant with a flit of the wings.

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.

One must be prepared to fight for one’s simple pleasures and to defend them against elegance and erudition and all manner of glamorous enticements.

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 wait in the station for their train to arrive.

—Wallace, I asked as he handed me my plate, if I declared war on America, would you stay and fight with me?

Wallace was just the sort who blends into the background of the school photo (or the greeting line at the cotillion) but who, with the passage of time, increasingly stands out against the lapses in character around him.

that as Tinker and I had come of age, we hadn’t been on opposite sides of a threshold; we’d been standing side by side.