He repeated to himself an old French proverb that he had made up that morning. – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Cunning authors cut to be quoted. – Willis Goth Regier, Quotology, 2010

The chief ingredients which go to make a true proverb are: sense, shortness, and salt. – James Howell, Paroimiografia, 1659

I suppose every old scholar has had the experience of reading something in a book which was significant to him, but which he could never find again. Sure he is that he read it there; but no one else ever read it, nor can he find it again, though he buy the book and ransack every page. – Ralph Waldo Emerson