Rules of Civility

by Amor Towles

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

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.

But 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.

—If we only fell in love with people who were perfect for us, he said, then there wouldn’t be so much fuss about love in the first place.