How do people go to sleep? I’m afraid I’ve lost the knack. I might try busting myself smartly over the temple with the night-light. I might repeat to myself, slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound; if I can remember any of the damn things. – Dorothy Parker, Here Lies, 1939

…have the same Use with Burning-Glasses, to collect the diffus’d Rays of Wit and Learning in Authors, and make them point with Warmth and Quickness upon the Reader’s Imagination. – Jonathan Swift, “A Letter of Advice to a Young Poet: Together With a Proposal fo

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