Quotations Weblog

Many of our readers have collections of their own and would like to give us quotes that we are missing from our website. We appreciate all submissions so much that we have set up a form to use to submit quotations. You can find it here:

• The Quotations Page: Contribute a Quotation

In case you’re thinking about adding quotations using our Contributed Quotations form, here are some tips that will ensure that your quote gets added:

• Spelling counts: If the quote you have added is misspelled or is lacking punctuation, it will not be considered. If we have to proof-read your submission, it will be deleted, not added to the collection.

• Include the author: If you type I don’t know, unknown or anonymous in the author field, we won’t even look at your submission. If you don’t know the author, it’s just a pretty thought, not a quotation.

• Don’t quote yourself: If you are quoting yourself, it’s not a quote, it’s publication. We won’t consider adding submissions that are self-quotes.

• Don’t quote bumper stickers: I know they’re witty, but they fall into the category of unknown authors. We want attributions.

• Include the source: Including the book, movie, website, etc. where you got the quote greatly improves the odds that it will be chosen to add to the collection.

• Unique sources are a plus: If you quote a video game, a webcomic, a comic book or television show with the author’s name and the source, you are almost guaranteed to have the quotation added to the collection. We are always on the lookout for unique quotes. You’ll even get extra bonus points for additional information like television episode, URL or series number.

We have a three-tiered system to our quotations collections. The collections that you see are added personally by Mike and I. The contributed quotes sit in a file until one of the two of us goes through it and either approves or deletes it. When a contributed quotation is approved, it doesn’t get added to our collection, only the Contributed Quotations collection, which is only searchable with extra effort. After a quote has been in the Contributed Quotations collection for a while, we will eventually add it to ours. We go through this process to preserve accuracy and even then, we get things wrong.

If you find a quotation that is incorrect, please tell us. It’s really easy to do. Each quote has its own page and there is a link for each one where you can email us. Click on the sentence: “Notice an error or discrepancy? Send us a comment about this quotation,” and we will be able to correct the quote.

Thank you to all of the people who have entered their favorite quotations into our Contributed Quotations collection. We appreciate your dedication to your favorite thoughts.

Every week, we bring you the quotations used in the CBS crime drama Criminal Minds. Here’s the one from the beginning of this week’s episode:

The show used the word “prize” rather than “throne,” which I’m assuming was an attempt to make it sound more applicable to modern situations, but made me think more of game shows. I’m not sure which word is correct, or if the quotation is authentic—it does appear all over the web, but I haven’t been able to verify it.

There was no quotation at the end of the episode this time, but midway through the show, one of the characters made an offhand remark about what “a cognitive scientist at MIT” said about coincidences. That turns out to be an authentic quotation:

It doesn’t surprise me to learn that the writers of this show read Psychology Today. You can read the entire article here: The Power of Coincidence

Criminal Minds airs Wednesday evenings on CBS. For our previous writings about this show, see the TV category.

Over the last few days, we have added a bunch of quotations to the collection. In addition to the quotations from Animal Crossing, we’ve added a bunch more. Here are some of our favorites:

I LOVE quotes from video games. Thank you to the person who suggested this last quotation, even though you didn’t state the true author’s name, I was able to track it down and add it to our collection.

Last month, I stumbled upon Animal Crossing: Wild World for the Nintendo DS. It is a videogame and I did a good job of describing it here:

• The Gadgets Page » Nintendo DS: Animal Crossing

• The Gadgets Page » Nintendo DS: Animal Crossing Update

Mike and I have been in disagreement for the last month about whether to add quotations from the game into our collection. I wanted to add them, but he didn’t think quotes from a videogame would be understandable on their own. He thought they would be inside jokes that didn’t stand up on their own merit. After weeks of discussion, we finally decided to add the quotes. Here are some of my favorites:

In the end, I decided that I would enter these quotes into our collection because so many people play this game. There is a generation of children who are going to get their morals and their views of life from this game and I couldn’t be any happier about it. Just like Sesame Street taught me to read and instilled me with a sense of wonder and joy at learning, Animal Crossing will teach kids to handle money, hold down a job and cultivate friendships. I couldn’t ask for any better introduction to those subjects than Animal Crossing.

I have been delighted on a daily basis by the personalities of the characters and the wittiness of the dialogue and letters that are written. There is a lot of repetition in this game, but that doesn’t make it any less witty. A special thanks to Takayuki Ikkaku, Arisa Hosaka, and Toshihiro Kawabata for the excellent script!

Click here or all of the Animal Crossing quotations that made it into our collection:

• Animal Crossing Quotes – The Quotations Page