Amor Towles Quotes
In the contemporary world, we think of politeness as surface behavior, like frosting - it's sweet and attractive and finishes off the cake. But 19th century nobility and the enlightened thinkers and stoics before them viewed manners in a very different way. To them, manners are an outward expression of an inward struggle.
Quotes to Explore
-
I still can't believe it when people say I am a celebrity.
-
I've always performed. I've done plays at home.
-
I reach my readers regardless of what the critics have written.
-
I can't bear to see myself even in movies. The feeling is complex. I can't stand the sight of myself.
-
When the best leader's work is done the people say, 'We did it ourselves.'
-
The last thing you want to do when you are about to film a scene is think, 'Oh my God, so many people are going to watch this.'
-
I believe that I have been basically anarchistic, anti-religion and anti-industry and business. In other words, anti-bureaucracy. I would like to see people behave well without having to have priests stand by, politicians stand by, or people collecting bills.
-
My core belief is that if you're complaining about something for more than three minutes, two minutes ago you should have done something about it.
-
I do two months of strict dieting, so after fight night, I go for whatever my body is craving. It's usually sushi. But after that, I go home to Guadalajara and indulge in a lot of tacos before I have to start getting in shape for another fight.
-
I've been lucky enough to play roles that are not just the preppy cheerleader or sullen emo girl. I've been able to play roles that are really vast and varied and very three-dimensional. Fingers crossed that it remains the same.
-
I support gay unions. I think the government should get out of the marriage business completely - leave marriages to the churches. And grant civil unions to gay couples, grant civil unions to a man and woman.
-
French men can be very tough too, you know... Real bad boys move in silence, as we know, so you don't have to be loud and muscular to be scary, actually.
-
I'm in favour of religion as a tamer of arrogance. For a Greek Orthodox, the idea of God as creator outside the human is not God in God's terms. My God isn't the God of George Bush.
-
When you love something, it doesn't feel like work.
-
Do not learn more than you absolutely need to get through life.
-
At times it is folly to hasten at other times, to delay. The wise do everything in its proper time.
-
In fitness, there are no short cuts. It involves immense discipline and hard work.
-
Most important thought, if you love someone, tell him or her, for you never know what tomorrow may have in store.
-
Stay awhile that we may make an end the sooner.
-
It is better to be destroyed than to triumph in slaying the spirit... We die praising the universe in which at least such an achievement as ours can be.
-
Political philosophy was concerned with the best or just order of society which is by nature best or just everywhere or always, while politics is concerned with the being and well-being of this or that particular society (a polis, a nation, an empire) that is in being at a given place for some time.
-
Every utopia about to be realized resembles a cynical dream.
-
In the bigger scheme of things the universe is not asking us to do something, the universe is asking us to be something. And that's a whole different thing.
-
In the contemporary world, we think of politeness as surface behavior, like frosting - it's sweet and attractive and finishes off the cake. But 19th century nobility and the enlightened thinkers and stoics before them viewed manners in a very different way. To them, manners are an outward expression of an inward struggle.
