I think we must quote whenever we feel that the allusion is interesting or helpful or amusing.
Clifton FadimanWhen 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.
Clifton FadimanTo read in bed is to draw around us invisible, noiseless curtains. Then at last we are in a room of our own and are ready to burrow back, back to that private life of the imagination we all led as a child and to whose secret satisfactions so many of us have mislaid the key.
Clifton Fadiman[Books] will visit you at your convenience, whether you are lonesome or not, on rainy days or fair. They propose themselves as either transient acquaintances or permanent friends. They will stay as long as you like, departing or returning as you wish. Their friendship entails no obligation. Best of all, and not always true of our merely human friends, they have Cleopatra's infinite variety.
Clifton Fadiman