Out of curiosity… why does the oddness depend on whether the paragraphs are blockquote? It would be less odd without the blockquote mark on the left? Are you certain that someone else didn’t write that sentence? And what’s odd about it? Even if he did write it, isn’t it fairly standard practice to for people to write their own introductions & accolades in third person? I’ve seen it a lot, and the point, for better or worse, is to make it sound like someone else wrote it. In many cases authors of books, articles, talks, etc. are expected to provide their own introduction, and it’s kinder than expecting someone else to to know your history or say nice things about you.