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Rules of Civility
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Rules of Civility (2011) (edit title/settings)

by Amor Towles (Author) (edit contributors)

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A sophisticated and entertaining debut novel about an irresistible young woman with an uncommon sense of purpose. Set in New York City in 1938, Rules of Civility tells the story of a watershed year in the life of an uncompromising twenty-five-year- old named Katey Kontent. Armed with... read more

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  • “In the 1950s, America had picked up the globe by the heels and shaken the change from its pockets.”
    pg 1
  • “It is a lovely oddity of human nature that a person is more inclined to interrupt two people in a conversation than one person alone with a book....”
    Katey
  • “If Broadway was a river running from the top of Manhatten down to the Battery, undulating with traffic and commerce and lights, then the east-west streets were eddies where, leaflike, one could turn slow circles from the beginning to the ever shall be, world without end.”
  • “The romantic interplay that we were having wasn't the real game - it was a modified version of the game. It was a version invented for two friends so that they can get some practice and pass the time divertingly while they wait in the station for their train to arrive.”
    Katey p. 185
  • “I suppose it's an immutable law of human nature that we sum up the events of the year as we approach its end.”
  • “Slurring is cursive speech, I observed.”
    Katey
  • “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.”
    Katey - pg 150
  • “For however inhospitable the wind, from this vantage point manhattan was simply so improbable, so wonderful, so obviously full of promise, that you wanted to approach it for the rest of your life without ever quite arriving.”
    Tinker
  • “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 underway; 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 superego dissolves as your mind wanders aimlessly over your cares and your dreams....”
  • “...if you know anything about butterflies, you know that the two sides of their wings can be dramatically different. If the top is an opalescent blue, the underside can be a brownish gray with ocher spots. The sharp contrast provides butterflies with a material evolutionary advantage, because when their wings are open they can attract a mate, while when their wings are closed they can disappear on the trunk of a tree. It's a bit of a cliche to refer to someone as a chameleon: a person who can change his colors from environment to environment. In fact, not one in a million can do that. But there are tens of thousands of butterflies: men and women like Eve with two dramatically different colorings--one which serves to attract and the other which serves to camouflage--and which can be switched at the instant with a flit of the wings.”
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • One must be prepared to fight for one’s simple pleasures and to defend them against elegance and erudition and all manner of glamorous enticements.
    Highlighted by 483 Kindle customers
  • As a quick aside, let me observe that in moments of high emotion—whether they’re triggered by anger or envy, humiliation or resentment—if the next thing you’re going to say makes you feel better, then it’s probably the wrong thing to say.
    Highlighted by 464 Kindle customers
  • —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.
    Highlighted by 421 Kindle customers
  • Which is just to say, be careful when choosing what you’re proud of—because the world has every intention of using it against you.
    Highlighted by 415 Kindle customers
  • Uncompromising purpose and the search for eternal truth have an unquestionable sex appeal for the young and high-minded; but when a person loses the ability to take pleasure in the mundane—in the cigarette on the stoop or the gingersnap in the bath—she has probably put herself in unnecessary danger.
    Highlighted by 362 Kindle customers
  • —Most people have more needs than wants. That’s why they live the lives they do. But the world is run by those whose wants outstrip their needs.
    Highlighted by 356 Kindle customers
  • 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.
    Highlighted by 301 Kindle customers
  • Old times, as my father used to say: If you’re not careful, they’ll gut you like a fish.
    Highlighted by 253 Kindle customers
  • But for me, dinner at a fine restaurant was the ultimate luxury. It was the very height of civilization. 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)?
    Highlighted by 251 Kindle customers
  • Because when some incident sheds a favorable light on an old and absent friend, that’s about as good a gift as chance intends to offer.
    Highlighted by 236 Kindle customers
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First Sentence edit see section history

On the night of October 4th, 1966, Val and I both in late middle age, attended the opening of Many are Called at the Musuem of Modern Art--the first exhibit of the portraits taken by Walker Evans in the late 1930's on the New York City subways with a hidden camera

Table of Contents edit see section history

Preface

Wintertime
Chapter One: The Old Long Since
Chapter Two: The Sun, the Moon & the Stars
Chapter Three: The Quick Brown Fox
Chapter Four: Deus Ex Machina
January 8

Springtime
Chapter Five: The Have and to Haven't
Chapter Six: The Cruelest Month
Chapter Seven: The Lonesome Chandeliers
Chapter Eight: Abandon Every Hope
Chapter Nine: The Scimitar, the Sifter & the Wooden Leg
Chapter Ten: The Tallest Building in Town
Chapter Eleven: La Belle Epoque
June 27

Summertime
Chapter Twelve: Twenty Pounds Ought and Six
Chapter Thirteen: The Hurlyburly
Chapter Fourteen: Honeymoon Bridge
Chapter Fifteen: The Pursuit of Perfection
Chapter Sixteen: Fortunes of War
Chapter Seventeen: Read All About It
Chapter Eighteen: The Now and Here
Chapter Nineteen: The Road to Kent
September 30

Fall
Chapter Twenty: Hell Hath No Fury
Chapter Twenty One: Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Tempest-Tost
Chapter Twenty Two: Neverland
Chapter Twenty Three: Now You See It
Chapter Twenty Four: Thy Kingdom Come
Chapter Twenty Five: Where He Lived and What He Lived For
Chapter Twenty Six: A Ghost of Christmas Past
December 30

Epilogue
Few Are Chosen
Appendix
Acknowledgements

Series & Lists edit see section history

This book is in 2011 Published Books. (community list)
This book is in Amazon.com Best Books of 2011. (authoritative list)
This is book 6 of 10 in Amazon.com Best Books of August (2011). (authoritative list)

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Amor Towles (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Viking Penguin
Country: United States
Publication Date: 2011
ISBN: 978-0-670-02269-4
Page Count: 337

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: PS3620.O945R85 2011
  • Dewey: 813.6

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Reading Level: Adults

Alcohol, casual sex, No sex in the Swedish Edition!!!!!!

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
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