299 Quotes by Amor Towles

When I awoke, I suddenly understood this propensity for self-destruction was not an abomination, not something to be ashamed of or abhorred; it was our greatest strength. We turn the gun on ourselves not because we are more indifferent and less cultured... On the contrary. We are prepared to destroy that which we have created because we believe more than any of them in the power of the picture, the poem, the prayer, or the person.

If you are in doubt, just remember that unlike adults, children want to be happy.

History is the business of identifying momentous events from the comfort of a high-back chair.

Or rather, he stood at a slight tilt induced by the wine, a sort of 12:02.

And there, as the sun begins to rise, he is overcome with thoughts of an affirmation, a proclamation, a promise – a promise to shine everywhere and always to very depths of the last days – which, after all, is all that anyone has ever asked of love.

For standing at the edge of his table was the young girl with the penchant for yellow – studying him with that unapologetic interest peculiar to children and dogs. Adding.

He had said that our lives are steered by uncertainties, many of which are disruptive or even daunting; but that if we persevere and remain generous of heart, we may be granted a moment of lucidity – a moment in which all that has happened to us suddenly comes into focus as a necessary course of events, even as we find ourselves on the threshold of the life we had been meant to lead all along.

Our faculties wax and wane, our experiences accumulate, and our opinions evolve- if not glacially, then at least gradually.

Invariably dressed in black, the Countess was one of those dowagers whose natural natural independence of mind, authority of age, and impatience with the petty made her the ally of all irreverent youth.