Quotes from “A Gentleman from Moscow” by Amor Towles

The book is about a guy, who is watching the time whooshing by during the Russian revolution.

I had picked it from Bill Gates reading list. It was a fun read, filled with clever humour and a new perspective about grim and grey Russia we know from the Hollywood movies.

This is not a review, though I’d recommend one to pick it up immediately if they are in between books. This is a collection of quotes by various characters in the novel, sometimes they are witty, sarcastic, wise among other things.

Arriving late, thought the Count with a sigh. What a delicacy of youth.

“ There is nothing pleasant to be said about losing, ” she began, “ and the Obolensky boy is a pill. But, Sasha, my dear, why on earth would you give him the satisfaction ? ”

Long had he believed that a gentleman should turn to a mirror with a sense of distrust. For rather than being tools of self — discovery, mirrors tended to be tools of self — deceit.

“ The principle here is that a new generation owes a measure of thanks to every member of the previous generation. 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. ”

( Lest you have forgotten, it is quite excruciating to hammer the back of your thumb. It inevitably prompts a hopping up and down and the taking of the Lord’s name in vain. )

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. “Marvellous,” said the Count.

But Fate would not have the reputation it has if it simply did what it seemed it would do.

While the splendors that elude us in youth are likely to receive our casual contempt in adolescence and our measured consideration in adulthood, they forever hold us in their thrall.

By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration — and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour.

Like the seasoned scientist, Osip would coolly dissect whatever they had just observed. The musicals were “ pastries designed to placate the impoverished with daydreams of unattainable bliss. ” The horror movies were “ sleights of hand in which the fears of the workingman have been displaced by those of pretty girls. ” The vaudevillian comedies were “ preposterous narcotics. ” And the westerns ? They were the most devious propaganda of all: fables in which evil is represented by collectives who rustle and rob; while virtue is a lone individual who risks his life to defend the sanctity of someone else’s private property. In sum ? “ Hollywood is the single most dangerous force in the history of class struggle. ”

But to toast Fate is to tempt Fate;

Cups of tea and friendly chats ! the modern man objects. If one is to make time for such idle pursuits, how could one ever attend to the necessities of adulthood ?

For a moment, the Man of Intent was a Man Who Didn’t Know What to Do.

It unfolds. At any given moment, it is the manifestation of a thousand transitions. Our faculties wax and wane, our experiences accumulate, and our opinions evolve — if not glacially, then at least gradually.

“ What’s gotten your goat ? ” “ Nothing has gotten my goat. My goat is not gotten. ”

For as it turns out, one can revisit the past quite pleasantly, as long as one does so expecting nearly every aspect of it to have changed.

That’s all. Hope these bits made you want to read the book.