Quotes, whether realized or not, are a way to keep our heritage intact. We start at the earliest age quoting, "Mommy said..." We quote someone because we admire them. We quote people as good examples or bad examples. We sometimes quote experts on particular subjects to prove a point, as if that person would somehow agree with me if he or she were standing in the same room. And, we may even change a word or two of a famous quote to somehow make it our own (it's still plagiarism!) thinking people won't remember the originator but hoping that someday we will be the one known in history for that quote.
Except for plagiarists, I don't believe people set out to be quoted. How many times has a woman stopped and said, "I just sounded like my mother!"? Many people we quote didn't have a college education and even fewer took creative writing classes. And those who chose to put their words to paper weren't doing it to be quoted; they did it because they had something to say. Just mentioning the names of Thomas Payne or Charles Dickens or C.S. Lewis or Benjamin Franklin or Edna Ferber or Margaret Mitchell would bring not only quotes, but also stories to mind. These authors had something to say and they said it.
The process of writing for these people came out of life experience and they were willing to work to put on paper. It didn't come easily and many of them shared nuggets of wisdom that we can appreciate even more as we read their works and perhaps welcome as we work and labor on what we need to say.
"Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man" (Sir Francis Bacon, 1561-1626).
"None can truly write his single day, and none can write it for him upon earth" (Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1809-1892).
"Few men make themselves masters of the things they write or speak" (John Selden, 1584-1654).
"Nine-tenths of the value of a sense of humor in writing is not in the things it makes one write but in the things it keeps one from writing. It is especially valuable in this respect in serious writing, and no one without a sense of humor should ever write seriously. For without knowing what is funny, one is constantly in danger of being funny without knowing it" (Robert Benchley, 1889-1945).
"Writing is not like painting where you add. It is not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove; you eliminate in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain" (Elie Wiesel, b. 1928).
"Writing is not a performance but a generosity" (Brenda Ueland, 1891-1985).
"If writing must be a precise form of communication, it should be treated like a precision instrument. It should be sharpened, and it should not be used carelessly" (Theodore M Bernstein).
"Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic" (Raymond Chandler, 1888-1959).
"A book should long for pen, ink, and writing-table: but usually it is pen, ink, and writing-table that long for a book. That is why books are so negligible nowadays" (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900).
"Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. Writing may be interesting, absorbing, exhilarating, racking, relieving. But amusing? Never!" (Edna Ferber, 1887-1968)
"Of all those arts in which the wise excel, Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well" (Duke of Buckinghamshire Sheffield, 1649-1720).
"So difficult it is to show the various meanings and imperfections of words when we have nothing else but words to do it with" (John Locke, 1632-1704).
"The worship of words is more pernicious than the worship of images. Grammatolatry is the worst species of idolatry" (Robert Dale Owen).
"Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of definition" (Eli Khamarov).
"Words are the small change of thought" (Jules Renard, 1864-1910).
"Writing is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to people who have none" (Jules Renard, 1864-1910).
"Writing is the only way to talk without being interrupted" (Jules Renard, 1864-1910).
"Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money" (Jules Renard, 1864-1910).
"Who will consider that no dictionary of a living tongue ever can be perfect, since, while it is hastening to publication, some words are budding, and some falling away; that a whole life cannot be spent upon syntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would not be sufficient; that he, whose design includes whatever language can express, must often speak of what he does not understand" (Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784).
"Poetry, indeed, cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preserve the languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a language if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a translation. But as the beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written, we learn the language" (Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784).