An epigram is a gag that’s played Carnegie Hall. – Oscar Levant (Thanks, Garson O’Toole of quoteinvestigator.com!)
Whoever reads only to transcribe or quote shining remarks without entering into the genius and spirit of the author, will be apt to be misled out of a regular way of thinking, and the product of all this will be found to be a manifest incoherent piece of patchwork. – Attributed to Swift in A Dictionary of Thoughts, Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Q