Top 280 Amor Towles Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “Posture? Is posture a type of manners?” “Yes,” replied the Count, albeit a little tentatively, “it is. A slouching posture tends to suggest a certain laziness of character, as well as a lack of interest in others. Whereas an upright posture can confirm a sense of self-possession, and a quality of engagement – both of which are befitting of a princess.” Apparently.”

— Amor Towles

102. “For better or worse, there are few things so disarming as one who laughs well at her own expense.”

— Amor Towles

103. “If one had lived one’s day well- in the service of industry, liberty, and the Lord- one should be soundly asleep long before twelve. So the second chime of the twice-tolling clock was most definitely a remonstrance. What are you doing up? it was meant to say. Were you so profligate with your daylight that you must hunt about for things to do in the dark?”

— Amor Towles

104. “We turn the gun on ourselves not because we are more indifferent and less cultured than the British, or the French, or the Italians. 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.”

— Amor Towles

105. “If only I were there and she were here,” she sighed. And there, thought the Count, was a suitable plaint for all mankind.”

— Amor Towles

106. “Such is the magic of Christmas in childhood, thought the Count a little wistfully, that a single gift can provide one with endless hours of adventure while not even requiring one to leave one’s house.”

— Amor Towles

107. “But when the Count opened the small wooden drawer of the grinder, the world and all it contained were transformed by that envy of the alchemists – the aroma of freshly ground coffee.”

— Amor Towles

108. “She is no more than thirty pounds; no more than three feet tall; her entire bag of belongings could fit in a single drawer; she rarely speaks unless spoken to; and her heart beats no louder than a bird’s. So how is it possible that she takes up so much space?!”

— Amor Towles

109. “As best as the Count could determine, the Bolsheviks assembled whenever possible in whichever form for whatever reason. In a single week, there might be committees, caucuses, colloquiums, congresses, and conventions variously coming together to establish codes, set courses of action, levy complaints, and generally clamor about the world’s oldest problems in its newest nomenclature. If.”

— Amor Towles

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

— Amor Towles

111. “After all, an educated man should admire any course of study no matter how arcane, if it be pursued with curiosity and devotion.”

— Amor Towles

112. “The scientists call it human nature; which is just a fancy term for the God-given flaws we have no intention of giving back.”

— Amor Towles

113. “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.”

— Amor Towles

114. “Really. Is there anything nice to be said about other people’s vacations?”

— Amor Towles

115. “It was the symphony or silence.”

— Amor Towles

116. “Knowing beauty, influence, fame, and privilege to be borrowed rather than bestowed, they are not easily impressed. They are not quick to envy or take offense.”

— Amor Towles

117. “Well, my boys,” he said, giving them a good scratching behind the ears, “where do you hail from?” “Arf,” replied the dogs. “Ah,” said the Count. “How lovely.”

— Amor Towles

118. “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.”

— Amor Towles

119. “As I’ve said to you before, we and the Americans will lead the rest of this century because we are the only nations who have learned to brush the past aside instead of bowing before it. But where they have done so in service of their beloved individualism, we are attempting to do so in service of the common good.”

— Amor Towles

120. “A slouching posture tends to suggest a certain laziness of character as well as a lack of interest in others. Whereas an upright position can confirm a sense of self-possession and a quality of engagement.”

— Amor Towles

121. “But at forty? They had enough appetite to eat well, enough temperance to drink in moderation, and enough wisdom to celebrate the absence of their children by getting a good night’s sleep.”

— Amor Towles

122. “But in a period of abundance any half-wit with a spoon can please a palate.”

— Amor Towles

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

— Amor Towles

124. “Labour to keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Celestial fire Called Conscience.”

— Amor Towles

125. “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.”

— Amor Towles

126. “In its color, aroma, and taste, it would certainly express the idiosyncratic geology and prevailing climate of its home terrain. But in addition, it would express all the natural phenomena of its vintage. In a sip, it would evoke the timing of that winter’s thaw, the extent of that summer’s rain, the prevailing winds, and the frequency of clouds. Yes, a bottle of wine was the ultimate distillation of time and place; a poetic expression of individuality itself.”

— Amor Towles

127. “But events can unfold in such a manner that overnight the man out of step finds himself in the right place at the right time. The fashions and attitudes that had seemed so alien to him are suddenly swept aside and supplanted by fashions and attitudes in perfect sympathy with his deepest sentiments. Then, like a lone sailor adrift for years on alien seas, he wakes one night to discover familiar constellations overhead. And.”

— Amor Towles

128. “But do you think the achievements of the Americans – envied the world over – came without a cost? Just ask their African brothers. And do you think the engineers who designed their illustrious skyscrapers or built their highways hesitated for one moment to level the lovely little neighborhoods that stood in their way? I guarantee you, Alexander, they laid the dynamite and pushed the plungers themselves.”

— Amor Towles

129. “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.”

— Amor Towles

130. “That’s how quickly New York City comes about – like a weather wane – or the head of a cobra. Time tells which.”

— Amor Towles

131. “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.”

— Amor Towles

132. “For it is a fact that a man can be profoundly out of step with his times. A man may have been born in a city famous for its idiosyncratic culture and yet, the very habits, fashions, and ideas that exalt that city in the eyes of the world may make no sense to him at all.”

— Amor Towles

133. “To have even one year when you’re presented with choices that can alter your circumstances, your character, your course- that’s by the grace of God alone. And it shouldn’t come without a price.”

— Amor Towles

134. “When one turns seventeen and begins to experience that first period of real independence, one’s senses are so alert, one’s sentiments so finely attuned that every conversation, every look, every laugh may be writ indelibly upon one’s memory. And the friends that one happens to make in those impressionable years? One will meet them forever after with a welling of affection.”

— Amor Towles

135. “That is how time passes when one is left waiting unaccountably. The hours become interminable. The minutes relentless. And the seconds? Why, not only does every last one of them demand its moment on the stage, it insists upon making a soliloquy full of weighty pauses and artful hesitations and then leaps into an encore at the slightest hint of applause.”

— Amor Towles

136. “Our elders planted fields and fought in wars; they advanced the arts and sciences, and generally made sacrifices on our behalf. So by their efforts, however humble, they have earned a measure of our gratitude and respect.”

— Amor Towles

137. “Learning dance steps was the sorry Saturday night pursuit of every boardinghouse girl in America.”

— Amor Towles

138. “In the apartment next door, I could hear the Zimmers sharpening their sarcasm. Over an early dinner, they chipped away at each other like little Michelangelos, placing every stroke of the mallet with care and devotion.”

— Amor Towles

139. “Not only did the Bolsheviks seem to dwell on the same sort of subject matter day to day, they celebrated such a narrow set of views with such a limited vocabulary that one inevitably felt as if one had read it all before. It.”

— Amor Towles

140. “As a quick aside, let me observe that in moments of high emotion... if the next thing you’re going to say makes you feel better, then it’s probably the wrong thing to say.”

— Amor Towles

141. “True, it would not be a new venture for him. But need it be? Could one possibly accuse him of nostalgia or idleness, of wasting his time simply because he had read the story two or three times before?”

— Amor Towles

142. “Resting his forearms on his thighs and leaning forward at an angle of seventy degrees, he adopted an expression that was serious yet neutral, so that in an instant he could convey his sympathy, concern, or shared indignation as the circumstances required.”

— Amor Towles

143. “The Count commenced to cough into his napkin, as he had determined long ago that this was the most effective means of removing wine from his windpipe.”

— Amor Towles

144. “A good Christian shows compassion toward those who are in difficulty. And that is an important part of the parable’s meaning. But an equally important point that Jesus is making is that we don’t always get to ‘choose’ to whom we should show our charity.”

— Amor Towles

145. “As the sign over the cash register made clear, the three ways you could get your coffee at Chester’s were sweetened, unsweetened, and somewhere else.”

— Amor Towles

146. “Some, no doubt, would simply dismiss it as a by-product of barbarism. Given Russia’s long, heartless winters, its familiarity with famine, its rough sense of justice, and so on, and so on, it was perfectly natural for its gentry to adopt an act of definitive violence as the means of resolving disputes.”

— Amor Towles

147. “Whether through careful consideration spawned by books and spirited debate over coffee at two in the morning, or simply from a natural proclivity, we must all eventually adopt a fundamental framework, some reasonable coherent system of causes and effects that will help us make sense not simply of momentous events, but of all the little actions and interactions that constitute our daily lives–be they deliberate or spontaneous, inevitable or unforeseen.”

— Amor Towles

148. “Older and shorter, Henry Grey was a painter who lived in the West Village. When Eve asked what was the best word to describe him, after thinking a moment Tinker settled on unwavering – because his brother had always who he was and what he wanted to do.”

— Amor Towles

149. “For the launch of the First Five-Year Plan, Bukharin’s fall from grace, and the expansion of the Criminal Code to allow the arrest of anyone even countenancing dissension, these were only tidings, omens, underpinnings. And it would be a decade before their effects were fully felt.”

— Amor Towles

150. “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.”

— Amor Towles