If this were true, I’ve wasted a lot of money on literature courses, and there are a lot of Eng Lit teachers and authors making money under false pretences.
Read Morequotation marks, by Terry Freedman
quotations
A Writer’s Reference Toolkit: Quotations
Books of quotations are important, I think, for those odd occasions you need to have one. And that phrase “odd occasions” is the rub: do you actually need to buy a reference book for occasional use when there is so much available on the web these days?