In literature, an epigraph is a phrase, quotation, or poem that is set at the beginning of a document, monograph or section or chapter thereof. The epigraph may serve as a preface to the work; as a summary; as a counter-example; or as a link from the work to a wider literary canon, with the purpose of either inviting comparison or enlisting a conventional context.

A book may have an overall epigraph that is part of the front matter, one for each chapter, or both.

Some writers use as epigraphs fictional quotations that purport to be related to the fiction of the work itself. Examples include: