Why are not more gems from our great authors scattered over the country? Great books are not in everybodys reach; and though it is better to know them thoroughly than to know them only here and there, yet it is a good work to give a little to those who have not the time nor means to get more. – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Not everything that can be extracted appears in anthologies of quotations, in commonplace books, or on the back of Celestial Seasonings boxes. Only certain sorts of extracts become quotations. – Gary Saul Morson, The Words of Others: From Quotations to Culture, 2011

Quotations cause all kinds of trouble. – Willis Goth Regier, Quotology, 2010

We sometimes think of quotations as extracts from larger texts, but some quotations originated complete unto themselves. – Gary Saul Morson, The Words of Others: From Quotations to Culture, 2011