Amor Towles

Een jonge vrouw, die op zoek is naar het goede leven, ontmoet in het New York van 1938 een miljonair die gelooft in de leefregels van de 18e eeuwse president George Washington.

Rules of Civility

Cassandra Tang

Lost in thought, masked by the anonymity of their commute, unaware of the camera that was trained so directly upon them, many of these subjects had unknowingly allowed their inner selves to be seen.

I think we all have some parcel of the past which is falling into disrepair or being sold off piece by piece. It’s just that for most of us, it isn’t an orchard; it’s the way we’ve thought about something, or someone.

For the most part, in the course of our daily lives we abide the abundant evidence that no such universal justice exists. Like a cart horse, we plod along the cobblestones dragging our masters’ wares with our heads down and our blinders in place, waiting patiently for the next cube of sugar.

—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.

In that sense, life is less like a journey than it is a game of honeymoon bridge. 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.

Rules of Civility quotes

Join the club