Clifton Fadiman

For most men life is a search for the proper manila envelope in which to get themselves filed.

I think we must . . . quote whenever we feel that the allusion is interesting or helpful or amusing.

When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before.

There is no reader so parochial as the one who reads none but this morning's books. Books are not rolls, to be devoured only when they are hot and fresh. A good book retains its interior heat and will warm a generation yet unborn.