Quoting

I was recently described online as follows: ...The cranky old so-and-so is a bit of a cheat in some ways, since many of his posts simply reprint amusing pictures, or quote from other blogs or newspaper articles (or dictionaries or encyclopedias)...

This seems fair comment except for the word cheat; I have never attempted to conceal the fact that much of OMF is not original but second-hand, and have frequently reminded readers of this, occasionally even going so far as to credit my sources.

Sometimes I like to quote someone else's quotation. The critic James Agate wrote several million words in many books and theatre reviews, as well as keeping a diary called Ego which was published in nine volumes. A high proportion of this was not written by him at all, but consisted of lengthy quotations from a variety of sources. One diary entry notes that Mrs Patrick Campbell, a famous actress in the early years of the twentieth century, complimented him thus: " I did so enjoy your book, James. Everything that everybody writes in it is so good".