Quotes are essential for two reasons. Without them, you're unlikely to convince the reader that the article contains more than your own opinion. And it goes with saying that good quotes greatly enliven an article.
Quotes usually come from living people, but they don't have to. You may well find relevant and engrossing quotes in books, letters, diaries and media reports – and even in studies produced for think tanks and government agencies. In this short article, originally published as a sidebar to a much longer piece, I got all the quotes from previously published (if obscure) sources.
You may even find something useful in a work of fiction. If you've been commissioned to write about something which may happen but hasn't yet, science fiction is likely to provide some insights. If you're writing about how human settlers could survive on the surface of Mars, the obvious source would be Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy.
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