Whenever one has nothing of significance to say (no new babies, pies, problems, or desires) or has a lot but instead of saying it prefers, like Bartleby, not to, one can always resort to a quote. That is, if for some reason communication still has to be produced, as for example when one tries to create the false impression that one does feel the need to say something (because that is generally considered a positive thing). With a well selected - and if you're desperate enough, edited - quote, anyone can say whatever they want or nothing at all. Very convenient for us all pseudo-intellectuals of the world. Quote-dropping is name-dropping raised to the second power. Fortunately, it can also fail miserably - more miserably than name-dropping because the deliberation required for quote-dropping is inevitably more obvious to others than the possible premeditation behind name-dropping. Thus to drop a quote is to take a risk.

A description of a thing entails the inscription of the self into the thing described.

Would I perhaps appear brighter than I appear now if I put the above sentence in quotation marks and added the name of some famous philosopher below it? Whether or not people agree with the idea, a quote tends to have more authority when it is supported by the right kind of famous name. Evaluating the quality of one-liners when the names of the originators are visible is like working as a figure skating judge.
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