Amor Towles

funny about photography, isn’t it? The entire medium is founded on the instant. If you allow the shutter to be open for even a few seconds, the image goes black. We think of our lives as a sequence of actions, an accumulation of accomplishments, a fluid articulation of style and opinion. And yet, in that one sixteenth of a second, a photograph can wreak such havoc.

“I see the blackberries have come in early this year!”

“A king fortifies himself with a castle,” observed the Count, “a gentleman with a desk.”

imagining what might happen if one’s circumstances were different was the only sure route to madness.

The commonest way of softening the hearts of those we have offended, when, vengeance in hand, they hold us at their mercy, is by submission to move them to commiseration and pity. However, audacity and steadfastness—entirely contrary means—have sometimes served to produce the same effect. . . .

Were one to ask Larousse to define the word cabinet, the acclaimed lexicographer might reply: A piece of furniture often adorned with decorative detail in which items may be stowed away from sight.