Why I Find Quotes To Be Useful
“I quote others only in order to better express myself.” — Montaigne
I really liked the Montaigne quote above because someone once put me down for using quotes so much. The irony is, he used a quote by someone famous to express his putdown.
One reason people use other peoples’ words is because they help us express what we ourselves are thinking and feeling.
I suppose it’s possible that people might use quotes as a means of projecting an air of intellectual pretense. I often pull the quotes I use from my readings, but equally often — as in the Montaigne quote here — I pull them from Wikiquotes, Goodreads or similar quote heap. Is this cheating? It so perfectly captured how I feel, why shouldn’t I snatch it?
Something else I’ve done, specifically in some of my fiction, is to make up quotes and put them in the mouths of obscure fictitious people. I’m curious how many readers have assumed it was a real quote from a real person of whom they were unfamiliar.
Here is an example of a story in which I used a quote from Rilke as a form of preface: The Nose
And here’s a story — translated into Croatian in the 90s — in which I created a fake quote and fictitious person: Duel of the Poets
