Rules of Civility

by Amor Towles

pride and absolute joy in weaving together the strands of his life so that when he gave them a good tug all the friends of friends of friends would come tumbling through the door.

All were engaged in conversations that looked effortless and intimate.

To the unpracticed eye they all looked of a piece—exhibiting a poise secured by the alchemy of wealth and station. But aspiration and envy, disloyalty and lust—these too were presumably on display, if only one knew where to look.

we shared one of Wallace’s unawkward silences. —You’ve got a . . . lot of books, he said at last. —It’s a sickness. —Are you . . . seeing anyone for it? —I’m afraid it’s untreatable.

a hundred muted lives being led without mystery or menace or magic.

fact, all these times and places and occasions are now and here. In a way, this celebration of the now and here seems to contradict the exhortation to follow one’s star. But it is equally persuasive. And oh so much more attainable.

agencies of an intricate moral equilibrium that was established by the Primary Mover at the dawn of time.

Along Central Park West, the taller apartment buildings jutted over the trees in solitary fashion like commuters on a railroad platform in the hours before the morning rush. The sky was Tiepolo blue. After a week of sudden cold, the leaves had turned, creating a bright orange canopy that stretched all the way to Harlem. It was almost as if the park was a jewel box and the sky was the lid.

—Most people have more needs than wants. That’s why they live the lives they do. But the world is run by those whose wants outstrip their needs.

As a quick aside, let me observe that in moments of high emotion—whether they’re triggered by anger or envy, humiliation or resentment—if the next thing you’re going to say makes you feel better, then it’s probably the wrong thing to say.

I suppose we don’t rely on comparison enough to tell us whom it is that we are talking to. We give people the liberty of fashioning themselves in the moment—a span of time that is so much more manageable, stageable, controllable than is a lifetime.

What he’s got they can’t teach in schools. They can squash it, maybe; but they sure can’t teach it. —And what’s that? —Wonder. —Wonder! —That’s right. 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.

he flitted from moment to moment and topic to topic like a sparrow in a hurricane of crumbs.

—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.

we made do sitting face-to-face on two overturned produce crates: HALLELUJAH ONIONS and AVIATOR LIMES.

you always gave me a glimpse of what might otherwise be.

The air was cool and the lights of the city shimmered. The little planes no longer circled the Empire State Building, but it was still a view that practically conjugated hope: I have hoped; I am hoping; I will hope.

I know that right choices by definition are the means by which life crystallizes loss.