We’re a compulsive but amiable crew, those of us who feel, or have felt, the compulsion to re-record the bright thoughts of other men and women. – Joseph Epstein, “Quotatious,” A Line Out for a Walk: Familiar Essays, 1991

Colors fade, temples crumble, empires fall, but wise words endure. – Agnes Sybil Thorndike (1882–1976)

In quoting others we cite ourselves. – Julio Cortázar (1914–1984), Around the Day in Eighty Worlds

But in the dying world I come from quotation is a national vice. No one would think of making an after-dinner speech without the help of poetry. It used to be the classics, now it’s lyric verse. – Evelyn Waugh, The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy, 1948