Brandon Lemon

“I suppose it’s an immutable law of human nature that we sum up the events of the year as we approach its end. Among other things, 1938 had been a year of knockings at my door. There was the Western Union boy who brought Eve’s birthday wishes all the way from London; and Wallace with a bottle of wine and the rules of honeymoon bridge. Then Detective Tilson; then Bryce; then Anne. In the moment, only some of those intrusions seemed welcome; but I guess I should have treasured them all. Because in a few years’ time, I’d be living in a doorman building myself—and once you’re in a doorman building, no one comes knocking ever again.”
― Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

“If you take a trait that by all appearances is a merit—a trait that is praised by pastors and poets, a trait that we have come to admire in our friends and hope to foster in our children—and you give it to some poor soul in abundance, it will almost certainly prove an obstacle to their happiness. Just as someone can be too smart for their own good, there are those who are too patient for their own good, or too hardworking.”
― Amor Towles, The Lincoln Highway

“Perhaps even people you like and admire immensely can make you see the World in ways you would rather not.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“—It wasn’t a bother at all, the old gent replied, gesturing toward his bed. I was only reading. Ah, I thought, seeing the corner of the book poking out from the folds of his sheets. I should have known. The poor old chap, he suffers from the most dangerous addiction of all.”
― Amor Towles, The Lincoln Highway