Excuse my 'Rules of Civility' withdrawals

Grand Central Station circa 1935-1941/Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives

“In our twenties, when there is still so much time ahead of us, time that seems ample for a hundred indecisions, for a hundred visions and revisions—we draw a card, and we must decide right then and there whether to keep that card and discard the next, or discard the first card and keep the second. And before we know it, the deck has been played out and the decisions we have just made will shape our lives for decades to come.”

“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.”

“If we only fell in love with people who were perfect for us...then there wouldn't be so much fuss about love in the first place.”

“Anyone who has ridden the subway twice a day to earn their bread knows how it goes: When you board, you exhibit the same persona you use with your colleagues and acquaintances. You've carried it through the turnstile and past the sliding doors, so that your fellow passengers can tell who you are - cocky or cautious, amorous or indifferent, loaded or on the dole. But you find yourself a seat and the train gets under way; it comes to one station and then another; people get off and others get on. And under the influence of the cradlelike rocking of the train, your carefully crafted persona begins to slip away. The super-ego dissolves as your mind begins to wander aimlessly over your cares and your dreams; or better yet, it drifts into ambient hypnosis, where even cares and dreams recede and the peaceful silence of the cosmos pervades.”

“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.”

“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."

“That's the problem with living in New York. You've got no New York to run away to.”

Inspiring. Gad, I adore Amor Towles.

My love affair with Amor Towles

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I still can't put this down. It feels like a love affair - sneaking glances, hurried words, stealing away to unlit rooms, just to taste Towles' prose on my lips.

I love Katey. I want my own Wallace Wolcott and Dicky Vanderwhile, and cried when they left. I hated Eve. I wanna punch Tinker on the face and wrap my arms around Hank, or maybe the opposite. I adore Anne Grandyn, her grandeur, her poise, her strength. I miss New York, and fell in love over and over again for the blinding lights, the nostalgic feeling for the future, every feeling, every word that is New York. Katey Kontent is my heroine. I'm Amor Towles' lover. This book will take you in.



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Current read: Rules of Civility

The crisp sound of plastic ripping under my fingers, the smell of paper, the smooth plane of the cover slightly disturbed by embossed letters, the crowded parking lot, lines of impatient work people, a woman clicks her tongue loudly, a man wipes his sweating nape, a girl staring me down over his boyfriend's shoulder. I looked up once, she looked away. I smirked and read and read and read, my body humming with lust over pages of prose. The van abruptly arrived, the line pushed me forward, I trip over words. Inside the capsule-like vehicle, bodies cramped against each other, shoulder-to-shoulder, elbow-to-rib, knees against the back of the seats, I pray for a short ride home. 

"On Friday nights, we let boys whom we had no intention of kissing buy us drinks, and in exchange for dinner we kissed a few whom we had no intention of kissing twice."