A Quote by Robertson Davies

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

Robertson Davies

Quote Topics

Age Morning Again Book Building Fine Great Great Book Light Maturity Moonlight More Morning Light Noon Old Old Age Once Once More Read Seen Should Truly Youth

Quote Author

Robertson Davies
Canadian - Novelist
August 28, 1913 - December 2, 1995

The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquillity of the evening. Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.

W. Somerset Maugham

I seldom read on beaches or in gardens. You can't read by two lights at once, the light of day and the light of the book. You should read by electric light, the room in shadow, and only the page lit up.

Marguerite Duras

Fine #? wine is a living liquid ... Its life comprises youth, maturity, old age, and death.

Julia Child

Youth should be radical. Youth should demand change in the world. Youth should not accept the old order if the world is to move on. But the old orders should not be moved easily - certainly not at the mere whim or behest of youth. There must be clash and if youth hasn't enough force or fervor to produce the clash the world grows stale and stagnant and sour in decay.

William Allen White

Youth has its romance, and maturity its wisdom, as morning and spring have their freshness, noon and summer their power, night and winter their repose. Each attribute is good in its own season.

Charlotte Bronte

If a book is really good, it deserves to be read again, and if it's great, it should be read at least three times.

Anatole Broyard

In fact I have a full page warning, right in the front of the book, that no one under the age of eighteen should read this book and no one should even turn the pages if they are sexually conservative or erotically deprived.

Burt Ward

Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.

Ezra Pound

Youth should be radical. Youth should demand change in the world. Youth should not accept the old order if the world is to move on.

William Allen White

The only things I read are gossip columns. If I read three pages of a book, I'm out like a light. When I pick up the book again, I've forgotten what I've read and have to start over again. By page three, even if I've just awakened from a nine -hour nap, I fall asleep again. So if anyone gives me a book, it had better have lots of pictures.

Ethel Merman

To make good use of life, one should have in youth the experience of advanced years, and in old age the vigor of youth.

Stanislaw I Leszczynski

People are anxious to save up financial means for old age; they should also be anxious to prepare a spiritual means for old age.... Wisdom, maturity, tranquility do not come all of a sudden when we retire.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Old age, especially an honored old age, has so great authority, that this is of more value than all the pleasures of youth.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Once established, an original river advances through its long life, manifesting certain peculiarities of youth, maturity and old age, by which its successive stages of growth may be recognized without much difficulty.

William Morris Davis

Someone once said that middle age is like rereading a book that you haven't read since you were a callow youth. The first time around you were dazzled by impressions, emotions, and tended to miss the finer points. In middle age you have the equipment to see the subtleties you missed before and you savor it more slowly.