John

“For what was civilization but the intellect’s ascendancy out of the doldrums of necessity (shelter, sustenance and survival) into the ether of the finely superfluous (poetry, handbags and haute cuisine)? So removed from daily life was the whole experience that when all was rotten to the core, a fine dinner could revive the spirits.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“For the most part in the course of our daily lives we abide the abundant evidence that no such universal justices exists. Like a cart horse, we plod along the cobblestones dragging our master's wares with our heads down and our blinders in place, waiting patiently for the next cube of sugar. But there are certain times when chance suddenly provides the justice that Agatha Christie promises. We look around at the characters cat in our own lives - our heiresses and gardeners, our vicars and nannies, our late-arriving guests who are not exactly what they seem - and discover before the end of the weekend all assembled will get their just deserts.

But when we do so, we rarely remember to count ourselves among their company.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Sometimes, it sure seems that’s what life intends. After all, it’s basically like a centrifuge that spins every few years casting proximate bodies in disparate directions. And when the spinning stops, almost before we can catch our breath, life crowds us with a calendar of new concerns.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“But as the weeks turned into months, and the months into years, this sense of anticipation waned, and slowly, but surely, I stopped expecting to see him in a crowd. Swept along by the currents of my own ambitions and commitments, my daily life laid the groundwork for the grace of forgetting”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility