“Read two old books for every new one.”

“I doubt if I shall ever have time to read the book again -- there are too many new ones coming out all the time which I want to read. Yet an old book has something for me which no new book can ever have -- for at every reading the memories and atmosphere of other readings come back and I am reading old years as well as an old book.”

“It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.”

“The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.”

“Cakes are like books: There are new ones you want to read and old favorites you want to reread.”

“If one has to choose between reading the new books and reading the old, one must choose the old: not because they are necessarily better but because they contain precisely those truths of which our own age is neglectful.”