People who rarely read long books, or even short stories, still appreciate the greatest examples of the shortest literary genres. I have long been fascinated by these short genres. They seem to lie just where my heart is, somewhere between literature and philosophy. – Gary Saul Morson, The Long and Short of It: From Aphorism to Novel, 2012

Whenever we would prepare the mind by a forcible appeal, an opening quotation is a symphony preluding on the chords whose tones we are about to harmonize. – Isaac D’Israeli, “Quotation,” A Second Series of Curiosities of Literature

To be amused by what you read — that is the great spring of happy quotations. – C.E. Montague (1867–1928), “Quotation”