The more cuttings you accumulate,

The more cuttings you accumulate, the more you will be tempted to offload them on your readers, like the celebrated Scottish leader writer who, returning late from a liquid lunch with a deadline to meet, clipeed the main leader from the Times, scrawled "What does the Times mean by this?" above it and sent it down to the printer. Packing the column with other people's quotes is the columnar equivalent of watering the milk. Assimilate the material and then discard it.
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Having something to write about is not the same as having something to say.