Thread: Adding quotes in between chapters.???

In the book I am writing, after every chapter I wish to add a quote. These quotes will be famous quotes, such as ones from Plato, etc. What are, if any, restrictions on this? I know it is stealing technically. Or is it ok to do so?

I believe the copyright law is the death of the author plus 50 years, unless someone else took out a copyright. It is not okay to infringe on copyright. If you want to use a quote and are in doubt, contact the author's PR people for permission. In the copyright cases I dealt with as a web developer, I found that most are very nice about this and appreciate being asked.

I checked with Plato's agent, and he says Plato has stopped responding to the agent's emails, which may not be a good sign. The agent is still looking for his 15% of any residual payments due. He did tell me that the copyrights on all of Plato's works have now expired, and to quote from the works is legally safe but ethically okay only if you give proper credit.

If you stick with really old writers you'll be okay, unless you are quoting a recent translation. Then you have to consider the copyright on the translation. Plato and most of the classic authors have been translated into English for hundreds of years so you should be able to find translations old enough to use safely. If you want to use a quote from Homer, by all means use the Chapman translation. It's almost 400 years old now, so it's safe. Just be sure you use the original Chapman and not a modern adaptation which would be copyrighted. Besides, the Chapman is the best ever English translation of Homer.

Aside from the legal issues, there is the issue of appropriateness. I've seen quotes used in books way when it was obvious the writer wanted to use a quote, couldn't find exactly what he wanted, and ended up just sticking something in because he needed to make every chapter have a quote. If you cannot find quotes that actually fit the chapters, it might be best to drop the idea.

I don't recall ever seeing quotes at the end of chapters, though I've seen many books with quotes at the beginning of chapters.

Oh yeah, I will only use older ones. Ancient war ones. As of now I have a quote for the next few chapters. I will NOT use one for every chapter but only where I feel it would fit. Remember this is a Marine Corps Infantry book. So many quotes will fit many places.

You can also do what Frank Herbert did, if you fancy yourself a worthy philosopher/word wrangler, and just make up your own. Every Dune book has one from his made up universe at the start of every chapter, and most are pretty cool. One is actually one of my favourite poems of all time, which is The Dirge for Jamis on the Funeral Plain.