Quotations is one of Jeopardy!'s most consistently tested topics, with roughly 2,540 clues and 23 Final Jeopardy appearances. The topic is nearly balanced between rounds, 52.5% of clues appear in Double Jeopardy and 46.6% in the Jeopardy round, suggesting the show treats quotations as material that scales naturally from easy recognition to harder attribution.
The raw category names reveal how the show slices this topic: "QUOTATIONS" (360 clues), "QUOTES" (356), "FAMOUS QUOTES" (209), "MOVIE QUOTES" (158), "BIBLICAL QUOTES" (120), "POLITICAL QUOTES" (86), "SPORTS QUOTES" (56), "CELEBRITY QUOTES" (39), "CITY QUOTES" (35), and "FAMOUS SPEECHES" (27). Specialized categories like "AFI'S TOP 100 MOVIE QUOTES," "BARTLETT'S FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS," and "MARK TWAIN QUOTES" appear as well.
What makes Quotations distinctive is its enormous answer variety and very flat distribution. No single answer dominates the way "giraffe" or "elephant" dominates Animals. The top answer, Yogi Berra, has only 11 appearances. This means raw memorization of a top-ten list won't carry you; you need broad cultural literacy across politics, literature, film, the Bible, and sports.
The gimmes: Yogi Berra (11, 100%), Richard Nixon (10, 100%), Abraham Lincoln (8, 100%), John the Baptist (8, 100%), Napoleon (7, 100%), Oscar Wilde (7, 100%), Mae West (7, 100%), money (7, 100%), Boston (7, 100%), Chicago (6, 100%), Solomon (5, 100%), Rome (5, 100%), Voltaire (5, 100%), The Wizard of Oz (5, 100%), love (5, 100%), death (5, 100%).
The stumper zone: Mark Twain (5, 50%: the biggest stumper among high-frequency answers), George Bernard Shaw (7, 28.6% wrong), David (5, 25% wrong), Will Rogers (10, 22.2% wrong), golf (5, 20% wrong), Daniel (5, 20% wrong), Citizen Kane (5, 20% wrong), Casablanca (5, 20% wrong).
Study strategy: Quotations fundamentally tests recognition, not memorization. Contestants rarely need to recite an exact quote; they need to identify WHO said it or WHAT movie it came from. The most productive study approach is to learn the "quote masters" (Berra, Rogers, Churchill, Wilde, Twain, Mae West) and their signature styles, then the AFI movie quotes, then the key biblical speakers. Final Jeopardy is notably difficult in this topic, with several 0/3 stumpers involving literary and biblical sources.
~230 clues across Political Quotes, Famous Speeches, and general quote categories · 87% correct
Political and presidential quotations form the single largest thematic cluster within this topic. The show draws heavily from American presidents, wartime leaders, and political philosophers, with clues ranging from iconic campaign slogans to lesser-known diplomatic remarks.
Richard Nixon 10 clues · 100% correct (A perfect gimme despite) or perhaps because of; the infamy of his most quoted moments. The Checkers speech of 1952, in which he defended himself against financial impropriety allegations by invoking his daughters' cocker spaniel, is the most frequently tested Nixon quote. "The silent majority", his appeal to Americans who did not join the anti-Vietnam War protests, appears regularly. Contestants also see his resignation-era quotes and the defiant "I am not a crook" from a 1973 press conference.
Abraham Lincoln 8 clues · 100% correct, Another perfect gimme. Lincoln's quotations on Jeopardy draw almost exclusively from his major speeches. "The better angels of our nature" comes from his First Inaugural Address. "A house divided against itself cannot stand", his declaration that the nation could not endure "half slave and half free", comes from his 1858 Senate campaign speech (itself drawing from Matthew 12:25). "You can fool all of the people some of the time" is perhaps his most colloquially quoted line, though its attribution is debated by historians. Contestants never miss Lincoln.
Ronald Reagan 7 clues · 85.7% correct, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" is the most tested Reagan quote, from his 1987 Berlin Wall speech. His quip after the 1981 assassination attempt ("Honey, I forgot to duck" (borrowed from Jack Dempsey)) and his debate line "There you go again" also appear. Reagan's background as a Hollywood actor means some of his quotes blur the line between the Political Quotes and Movie Quotes categories.
Douglas MacArthur 5 clues · 80% correct, "I shall return" (his 1942 promise upon leaving the Philippines) and "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away" (his 1951 farewell address to Congress) are the two MacArthur quotes contestants need to know. Occasionally the show tests his West Point farewell speech: "Duty, Honor, Country."
Henry Kissinger 5 clues · 80% correct, Kissinger's sardonic diplomatic wit provides the clue material. "Power is the great aphrodisiac" is his most tested line. His quips about academic politics ("so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small") and international diplomacy also appear.
Winston Churchill 7 clues · 85.7% correct, Churchill is the most-tested non-American political quoter. "Blood, toil, tears and sweat" from his first speech as Prime Minister in May 1940 is the signature clue. "We shall fight on the beaches" and "Their finest hour" from that same desperate summer also appear. His self-aware "History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it" and the bulldog determination of "Never, never, never give in" round out the Churchill canon on the show. The slight miss rate comes from clues that test his lesser-known bon mots rather than the wartime speeches.
Napoleon 7 clues · 100% correct, A perfect gimme. "An army marches on its stomach" is the most common Napoleon quote tested, though its true attribution is disputed. His address to troops before the Battle of the Pyramids ("Soldiers, forty centuries look down upon you") appears in higher-value clues. The show occasionally tests his reported last words or his exile-era reflections.
Mussolini 5 clues · 80% correct, "He made the trains run on time" is the quote most associated with Mussolini on the show, though historians note this was largely propaganda. His declarations about fascism and the state also appear.
Voltaire 5 clues · 100% correct, A perfect gimme. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" is the quintessential Voltaire quote on Jeopardy, though it was actually written by his biographer Evelyn Beatrice Hall. "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him" and his satirical advice to "cultivate our garden" from Candide also appear.
Watch out: The stumper pattern in political quotes comes not from the famous leaders but from the attribution puzzles. When the show asks WHO said something and the quote is from a lesser-known political figure, a cabinet secretary, a foreign minister, a political philosopher, accuracy drops sharply. Contestants also struggle when a quote is commonly misattributed (e.g., Voltaire's most famous "quote" was actually penned by his biographer).
Jeopardy loves people who are famous primarily FOR their quotations; the wits, the humorists, the epigram artists. This cluster of answers includes some of the topic's highest-frequency names and, paradoxically, some of its worst stumpers. The challenge is that many of these figures have overlapping styles: sardonic, pithy, self-deprecating. When a clue presents a clever one-liner without strong contextual clues, contestants must distinguish between a dozen possible attributions.
Yogi Berra 11 clues · 100% correct, The single most-tested answer in the entire Quotations topic and a perfect gimme. Berra's malapropisms and logical paradoxes are so distinctive that contestants never miss them. "It ain't over till it's over," "It's deja vu all over again," "Ninety percent of the game is half mental," "When you come to a fork in the road, take it," "You can observe a lot by watching," and "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded" all appear. The key to recognizing a Berra clue is the cheerful self-contradiction: his quotes sound like they shouldn't make sense but somehow do.
Will Rogers 10 clues · 77.8% correct, The cowboy philosopher and humorist is the second most-tested answer, but his 22.2% miss rate makes him a significant stumper. Rogers's political humor has a folksy, populist quality: "I don't make jokes, I just watch the government and report the facts," "All I know is just what I read in the papers," and "I never met a man I didn't like." The difficulty is that Rogers's style (wry political observation delivered in plain language) can be confused with Mark Twain or even modern comedians. When the clue doesn't mention "cowboy" or "lariat" or "Oklahoma," contestants lose their anchor.
Watch out: Will Rogers (22.2% wrong) is the fourth-most-missed high-frequency answer. His quotes lack the logical absurdity of Berra or the literary polish of Wilde; they sound like something anyone might say, which makes attribution harder.
Oscar Wilde 7 clues · 100% correct, Perfect gimme. Wilde's quotes on Jeopardy emphasize his theatrical wit and self-regard. "I can resist everything except temptation," "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about," and his customs declaration upon arriving in America ("I have nothing to declare except my genius") are the most tested. Wilde clues almost always contain a verbal paradox or inversion, which makes them instantly recognizable.
Mae West 7 clues · 100% correct, Another perfect gimme. West's double entendres about men and attraction are unmistakable: "Come up and see me sometime," "When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better," "Is that a pistol in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?" The show uses her quotes when it wants something racy but classic.
George Bernard Shaw 7 clues · 71.4% correct, Shaw's 28.6% miss rate makes him a notable stumper despite his high frequency. His quotes tend toward social criticism: "England and America are two countries separated by a common language" (also attributed to Wilde and Churchill), "He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches." The attribution confusion is the problem, Shaw, Wilde, and Churchill all traded in the same currency of polished English wit, and contestants sometimes pick the wrong Irishman or the wrong Englishman.
Watch out: George Bernard Shaw (28.6% wrong) trips contestants precisely because his style overlaps with Oscar Wilde and Winston Churchill. If a witty quote about society or language doesn't have a clear Wilde paradox or a Churchill wartime context, consider Shaw.
Mark Twain 5 clues · 50% correct, The single biggest stumper among well-known quote masters. Twain's problem on Jeopardy is twofold: first, an enormous number of quotes are attributed to him that he never actually said (the internet has made this worse), so clues sometimes test these misattributions specifically; second, his genuine quotes range so widely in tone (from folksy humor to bitter social satire) that contestants can't always identify his voice. "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated," "Golf is a good walk spoiled," and "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education" are among his most tested lines.
Watch out: Mark Twain (50% wrong) is the topic's biggest-name stumper. His quotes are so widely misattributed that the show sometimes builds clues around the misattribution itself, asking contestants to identify Twain as the person who DIDN'T say something commonly credited to him.
Groucho Marx, "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member" and "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend; inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." Groucho's humor is more absurdist than Berra's, Berra's paradoxes are accidental, Groucho's are deliberate.
W.C. Fields, "Anyone who hates children and animals can't be all bad" (actually said about Fields by Leo Rosten) and "I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it." Fields's persona as a misanthropic drunk provides strong contextual clues.
Dorothy Parker, "Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses," "You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think." Parker's wit is specifically literary and often involves wordplay, distinguishing her from the more broadly humorous male quoters.
Woody Allen, Neurotic, self-deprecating New York humor. "Eighty percent of success is showing up" and "I'm not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens."
Study strategy for the quote masters: Learn each person's STYLE, not just their quotes. Berra = accidental paradox. Rogers = folksy political observation. Wilde = deliberate paradox with literary polish. Mae West = sexual double entendre. Shaw = social criticism. Twain = ranges widely (the hardest to pin down). Churchill = defiant wartime rhetoric. If you can identify the style, you can often identify the speaker even for quotes you've never heard.
~210 clues including Movie Quotes (158), AFI's Top 100, and general quote categories · 86% correct
Movie quotes constitute their own substantial sub-genre within the broader Quotations topic, with 158 clues in the dedicated "MOVIE QUOTES" category alone. The American Film Institute's "100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes" list, published in 2005, has become a de facto study guide for this category; the show draws from it constantly, and having the top 20 or so memorized covers a remarkable percentage of clues.
The Wizard of Oz 5 clues · 100% correct, Perfect gimme. "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore," "There's no place like home," and "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" are all tested. The AFI list ranks "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore" at #4.
Citizen Kane 5 clues · 80% correct ("Rosebud") the dying whisper of Charles Foster Kane, is one of cinema's most famous utterances and the most tested Citizen Kane quote. The 20% miss rate comes from clues that reference the film obliquely or test less famous lines. A 2019 Final Jeopardy clue pairing "Rosebud" with "Plastics" (from The Graduate) stumped all three contestants.
Casablanca 5 clues · 80% correct, "Here's looking at you, kid," "Round up the usual suspects," "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine," and "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" all appear. Note that the most commonly "quoted" line ("Play it again, Sam") is a misquote; the actual line is "Play it, Sam." The show has tested this distinction.
Watch out: Citizen Kane (20% wrong) and Casablanca (20% wrong) both have stumper rates that seem surprising for such iconic films. The problem is that clues sometimes present the quotes without naming the film, asking contestants to identify the source; and when the quote is a less famous line from these films, contestants freeze.
The Graduate, "Plastics." That single word, spoken as career advice to Dustin Hoffman's Benjamin Braddock, is one of the most efficient movie quotes in Jeopardy history. It appeared in the 2019 Final Jeopardy stumper alongside "Rosebud."
The Godfather, "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse" (AFI #2) and "Leave the gun, take the cannoli." The Godfather quotes tend to be easier because the film's cultural footprint is so large.
Ghostbusters, "Who you gonna call?" and "He slimed me" are the tested lines. Ghostbusters quotes appear in lighter, lower-value clues.
Airplane!, "Don't call me Shirley" (said by Leslie Nielsen's Dr. Rumack) and other deadpan comedy lines. Like Ghostbusters, these tend to be easier recognition clues.
"Bond. James Bond." has appeared as a Final Jeopardy answer twice, in 1999 and 2021. The show treats this as a quote attribution question: who introduces himself this way? The repetition suggests it's considered a strong FJ clue that tests cultural literacy without being obscure.
The AFI's Top 100 Movie Quotes list is effectively a cheat sheet for this sub-category. The quotes that appear most frequently on Jeopardy from this list include:
The misquote trap: Several movie quotes are commonly misquoted, and the show loves testing the distinction. "Play it again, Sam" vs. the real "Play it, Sam" from Casablanca. "Luke, I am your father" vs. the actual "No, I am your father" from The Empire Strikes Back. "Elementary, my dear Watson" never actually appears in Arthur Conan Doyle's original Sherlock Holmes stories. When a clue emphasizes exact wording or asks about misquotations, these are the answers the show is looking for.
Study strategy for movie quotes: Memorize the AFI top 20. Know which films each comes from. Pay special attention to misquotes; the show tests these as a higher-difficulty variant. For Final Jeopardy, the clues tend to pair two quotes or ask you to identify a film from a less famous line.
~120 clues in "BIBLICAL QUOTES" plus appearances in general quote categories · 88% correct
Biblical quotations form a distinct and internally consistent sub-topic with 120 dedicated clues. The show treats the Bible as a quotation source the same way it treats Shakespeare, as a foundational text whose phrases have entered everyday English. Clues typically give a quote and ask for the speaker, the book, or the context, rather than asking contestants to recite chapter and verse.
John the Baptist 8 clues · 100% correct, The most-tested biblical figure in the Quotations topic and a perfect gimme. John the Baptist clues center on two narrative moments: his proclamation about baptism ("I baptize you with water, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I") and the story of his beheading at the request of Salome. Contestants recognize John the Baptist immediately because the clues almost always mention baptism, the Jordan River, or Herod's court.
Solomon 5 clues · 100% correct, Another perfect gimme. Solomon's wisdom, particularly his famous judgment proposing to divide a disputed baby in half, is the primary clue angle. Proverbs attributed to Solomon ("The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom") also appear. Solomon is easy to identify because clues reference wisdom, judgment, or the Book of Proverbs.
Job 5 clues · 80% correct, Job's suffering and patience provide the clue material. "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord" and "I am escaped with the skin of my teeth" (which gave English the idiom "by the skin of my teeth") are the most tested. The 20% miss rate comes from clues that test lesser-known passages from the Book of Job, which is one of the Bible's longest and most philosophically complex texts.
David 5 clues · 75% correct, David's quotations span his roles as psalmist, warrior, and king. "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want" (Psalm 23) is the most tested, but clues also reference his lament for Absalom ("O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom!") and his elegy for Saul and Jonathan ("How are the mighty fallen"). The 25% miss rate makes David the most-missed biblical figure.
Watch out: David (25% wrong) trips contestants because his quotes come from multiple books (Psalms, 2 Samuel) and multiple emotional registers (devotional, elegiac, triumphant). When a clue references a Psalm without naming it, contestants sometimes guess the wrong biblical figure.
Daniel 5 clues · 80% correct, Daniel's clues center on the famous episodes: the writing on the wall at Belshazzar's feast ("Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin") and Daniel in the lions' den. These are narrative quotes; the show is testing whether contestants know the story, not asking them to identify a literary style.
The show draws from both testaments but with different emphases:
Old Testament clues tend to test narrative moments and speakers, Solomon's judgment, Job's suffering, David's psalms, Daniel's prophecies, Moses at the burning bush ("I AM THAT I AM"), and the creation narrative in Genesis. These are "who said it?" or "what book is this from?" questions.
New Testament clues focus more heavily on Jesus's parables and teachings, the Sermon on the Mount ("Blessed are the meek," "Turn the other cheek"), and Paul's epistles ("Faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love" from 1 Corinthians 13). John the Baptist bridges the testaments as the forerunner of Jesus's ministry.
Psalms, The most quoted book on Jeopardy. "The Lord is my shepherd" (Psalm 23), "Out of the mouths of babes" (Psalm 8), and "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept" (Psalm 137) all appear. Psalms clues are generally attributed to David.
Proverbs, "Pride goeth before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18, usually paraphrased), "Spare the rod, spoil the child" (a paraphrase of Proverbs 13:24), and "A soft answer turneth away wrath" (Proverbs 15:1). Proverbs are attributed to Solomon.
Genesis, "Let there be light," "Am I my brother's keeper?" (Cain), "It is not good that the man should be alone" (God, before creating Eve).
Gospels, The Beatitudes, the Lord's Prayer, "Render unto Caesar," "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Gospel clues tend to identify Jesus as the speaker.
Study strategy for biblical quotes: Learn the five key speakers (John the Baptist, Solomon, Job, David, Daniel) and their signature moments. Know which books of the Bible are associated with which types of quotes (Psalms = David, Proverbs = Solomon, Gospels = Jesus). The show does not require deep theological knowledge; it tests the famous passages that have entered the English language as idioms and cultural references.
Watch out: Biblical "misquotes" occasionally appear. "Money is the root of all evil" is a common misquotation of 1 Timothy 6:10, which actually says "the LOVE of money is the root of all evil." "Pride goeth before a fall" is a compression of Proverbs 16:18 ("Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall"). The show sometimes tests these distinctions at higher values.
~150 clues across Sports Quotes (56), City Quotes (35), and thematic categories · 85% correct
Several smaller but distinctive sub-categories round out the Quotations topic. Sports quotes, city-related quotes, and thematic quote categories (organized around concepts like money, love, or death) each have their own internal logic and study patterns.
Sports quotations on Jeopardy lean heavily toward coaches and larger-than-life athletes, people whose quotes transcend their sport and enter general cultural knowledge.
Vince Lombardi, "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing" is the single most tested sports quote on the show. Lombardi's coaching philosophy (intense, uncompromising, bordering on fanatical) provides several other testable lines: "The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary."
Knute Rockne, "Win one for the Gipper" is the essential Rockne quote. The story behind it (Rockne's halftime speech invoking dying player George Gipp) connects to Ronald Reagan, who played Gipp in the 1940 film Knute Rockne, All American. This makes it a natural crossover clue between Sports Quotes and Political Quotes.
Muhammad Ali, "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" and "I am the greatest" are both tested. Ali's brash self-promotion makes his quotes instantly recognizable, no other sports figure talks like this.
Golf 5 clues · 80% correct, Golf is the sport most frequently appearing as a thematic ANSWER rather than as a source of quotes. "Golf is a good walk spoiled" (attributed to Mark Twain), "The harder I practice, the luckier I get" (attributed to Gary Player), and golf-related one-liners from various humorists provide the clue material. The 20% miss rate comes from clues where the sport itself is the answer and the quote doesn't obviously reference golf.
Watch out: Golf (20% wrong) is a stumper because the quotes about it tend to be humorous observations by non-golfers (Twain, Churchill, Rogers), so the sport itself isn't mentioned in the clue, contestants have to infer it from context.
The "CITY QUOTES" category asks contestants to identify a city from a famous quote about it. This is one of the most enjoyable sub-categories because the quotes are almost always well-known.
Boston 7 clues · 100% correct, Perfect gimme. "The Athens of America," Oliver Wendell Holmes's "hub of the solar system" (usually shortened to "Hub of the Universe"), and various literary references to Boston's intellectual culture provide the clue material.
Hollywood 7 clues · 85.7% correct, "A place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul" (Marilyn Monroe) and numerous celebrity complaints about the film industry's superficiality. The slight miss rate comes from quotes that could apply to Los Angeles more broadly.
Chicago 6 clues · 100% correct, Perfect gimme. Carl Sandburg's "City of the Big Shoulders" and "Hog Butcher for the World" are the most tested quotes. "The Windy City" references also appear.
Paris 6 clues · 85.7% correct, "Paris is always a good idea" (from the film Sabrina), Hemingway's "A moveable feast," and various artistic and romantic tributes to the city. The slight miss rate comes from quotes that could apply to France generally.
Rome 5 clues · 100% correct, Perfect gimme. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do," "All roads lead to Rome," and "Rome wasn't built in a day" are tested so frequently that this is essentially free money on the board.
Some of the most interesting Quotations clues have abstract concepts as their answers; the quote is about a theme, and the contestant must identify the theme.
Money 7 clues · 100% correct, Perfect gimme. Quotes about money from a wide range of sources: "Money makes the world go round" (Cabaret), "Money is the root of all evil" (biblical misquote), "A fool and his money are soon parted." When the show collects quotes around a theme, money is the most reliable answer.
Power 5 clues · 80% correct, "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely" (Lord Acton), "Power is the great aphrodisiac" (Kissinger), "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power" (attributed to Lincoln).
Love 5 clues · 100% correct, Perfect gimme. Quotes about love from Shakespeare, the Bible, and popular culture converge here. "Love is patient, love is kind" (1 Corinthians 13) and "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" (Tennyson) are typical.
Death 5 clues · 100% correct, Perfect gimme. "Death and taxes" (Benjamin Franklin), "To die, to sleep" (Hamlet), "Death be not proud" (John Donne). The 2018 Final Jeopardy clue about "death and taxes" stumped all three contestants despite this being a gimme in regular play, proof that FJ pressure changes the calculus.
Gertrude Stein 5 clues · 80% correct, Stein appears as a thematic answer because her most famous quote is about a concept: "A rose is a rose is a rose." Her description of Oakland ("There is no there there") is also frequently tested. The 20% miss rate comes from clues that reference her literary circle without clearly identifying her style.
Watch out: Gertrude Stein (20% wrong) is a stumper because her quotes are more famous than she is. Many contestants know "A rose is a rose is a rose" but can't attribute it, or they attribute "There is no there there" to someone else.
23 Final Jeopardy clues · accuracy notably lower than regular play
Quotations has produced 23 Final Jeopardy clues, and the accuracy rate is strikingly lower than in regular play. While contestants answer roughly 85-90% of regular Quotations clues correctly, several FJ clues have produced 0/3 wipeouts. The gap suggests that the show reserves its most obscure attribution puzzles and literary source questions for Final Jeopardy.
These clues defeated all three contestants:
Final Jeopardy Quotations clues cluster around three angles:
Literary source identification, "April is the cruellest month" (Eliot), quotes from Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. These are the hardest because they test whether contestants can connect a quote to a specific literary work.
Attribution puzzles, Who originally said "the last refuge of a scoundrel"? (Samuel Johnson, not Mark Twain or Winston Churchill). These exploit the widespread misattribution of famous quotes.
Movie and cultural identification, "Bond. James Bond," the Rosebud/Plastics pairing. These are the most accessible FJ clues because they test cultural literacy rather than literary scholarship.
| Answer | Wrong % | What trips contestants up |
|---|---|---|
| Mark Twain | 50% | Massive misattribution problem, many quotes credited to him aren't his |
| George Bernard Shaw | 28.6% | Style overlaps with Wilde and Churchill |
| David | 25% | Biblical quotes span Psalms, 2 Samuel, multiple books |
| Will Rogers | 22.2% | Folksy style lacks distinctive markers |
| golf | 20% | Sport itself is the answer, not obvious from humorist quotes |
| Daniel | 20% | Biblical, confused with other prophets |
| Citizen Kane | 20% | Less famous lines from the film stump contestants |
| Casablanca | 20% | Same issue, iconic film, but lesser-known quotes tested |
| Mussolini | 20% | The "trains on time" quote was actually propaganda |
| Gertrude Stein | 20% | Quotes more famous than the person |
| power | 20% | Abstract answer, contestants look for a person, not a concept |
| Henry Kissinger | 20% | Diplomatic wit confused with other political figures |
Tier 1, The Quote Masters (highest ROI): Learn the signature styles of Yogi Berra (accidental paradox), Will Rogers (folksy political humor), Oscar Wilde (deliberate literary paradox), Mae West (sexual double entendre), Winston Churchill (defiant wartime rhetoric), Mark Twain (ranges widely; the hardest to pin), Abraham Lincoln (soaring democratic idealism), and Napoleon (military grandeur). These eight figures account for roughly 75 of the top clues.
Tier 2, The AFI Movie Quotes: Memorize the top 20 from the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes list. Know which film each comes from. Pay special attention to the misquote variants ("Play it again, Sam" vs. "Play it, Sam"). Know Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, The Godfather, The Graduate, Gone with the Wind.
Tier 3, Biblical Speakers: Learn the five key speakers and their associated books: John the Baptist (Gospels), Solomon (Proverbs), Job (Job), David (Psalms), Daniel (Daniel). Know the signature moment for each. Learn the common biblical "misquotes" ("money is the root of all evil" vs. "the LOVE of money").
For Final Jeopardy: The extra edge comes from knowing the SOURCES; not just who said something but where it was first published. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, specific Shakespeare plays, specific books of the Bible, and T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land are all FJ-level source identifications. When you see a Quotations FJ clue, your first instinct should be to think about the SOURCE TEXT, not just the speaker.
Memorize these and recognize 10.0% of all Quotations clues.
| # | Answer | Count | Sample Clue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yogi Berra | 12 | "It ain't over till it's over" |
| 2 | Richard Nixon | 11 | In a 1969 speech, he was 1st to refer to "The Great Silent Majority" |
| 3 | Will Rogers | 10 | A line credited to this humorist is "I don't make jokes—I just watch the government and report the facts" |
| 4 | Mae West | 10 | "Between 2 evils, I always pick the one I've never tried before" |
| 5 | George Bernard Shaw | 9 | His play "Arms And The Man" includes the line "Oh, you are a very poor soldier: a chocolate cream soldier!" |
| 6 | Winston Churchill | 9 | Decades after leading England through WWII, he declared, "I'm so bored with it all" |
| 7 | It's a Wonderful Life | 9 | Jimmy Stewart: "Attaboy, Clarence" |
| 8 | money | 8 | "No man can serve two masters... ye cannot serve God and" this |
| 9 | John the Baptist | 8 | Herod thought that Jesus was this man "whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead" |
| 10 | Gertrude Stein | 8 | "Rose is a rose is a rose" is this writer's most famous redundancy |
| 11 | death | 8 | In I Corinthians 15:55 Paul asks of this, "Where is thy sting?" |
| 12 | Abraham Lincoln | 8 | He resolved that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth" |
| 13 | Ronald Reagan | 7 | California governor who said, "A tree's a tree, how many redwoods do you need to look at?" |
| 14 | Oscar Wilde | 7 | "The play was a great success, but the audience was a total failure", he said after "Lady Windemere's Fan" debuted |
| 15 | Napoleon | 7 | In 1798 he told his men, "From the summit of yonder pyramids forty centuries look down upon you" |
| 16 | Hollywood | 7 | Fred Allen called it "a place where people from Iowa mistake each other for movie stars" |
| 17 | Boston | 7 | "The home of the bean & the cod, where the Lowells talk to the Cabots, & the Cabots talk only to God" |
| 18 | the truth | 7 | In John 8:32 Jesus said, "ye shall know" this, and it "shall make you free" |
| 19 | King Solomon | 7 | "Divide the living child in two & give half to the one & half to the other" |
| 20 | Lyndon Johnson | 7 | In a 1965 message to Congress, he said, "poverty has many roots, but the tap root is ignorance" |
| 21 | Grandma Moses | 7 | This primitive artist who began painting in her 70s said, "Painting's not important. The important thing is keeping busy" |
| 22 | Paris | 6 | Joris K. Huysmans held a dark view of this "City of Light": he called it "a sinister Chicago" |
| 23 | Henry Kissinger | 6 | He said "power is the great aphrodisiac," 8; Nancy Maginnes must have believed him |
| 24 | Chicago | 6 | William G. Shepherd called it "the winded city" |
| 25 | the Cold War | 6 | Bartlett's says it was Bernard Baruch who 1st used this phrase describing "chilly" post-WWII tensions |
| 26 | Thomas Jefferson | 6 | In a letter to James Madison, he wrote that "a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing" |
| 27 | Voltaire | 5 | "I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it", said this Frenchman |
| 28 | The Wizard of Oz | 5 | 1939: "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" |
| 29 | Rome | 5 | To Pope Innocent II, it was "the capital of the world"; to us, it's a world capital |
| 30 | power | 5 | "Absolute (work divided by time) corrupts absolutely" |
| 31 | Mussolini | 5 | In 1934 this Italian leader said, "We have buried the putrid corpse of liberty" |
| 32 | Mark Twain | 5 | He wrote, "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society" |
| 33 | love | 5 | Among the quotations engraved in the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial is "Hate cannot drive out hate, only" this "can do that" |
| 34 | Job | 5 | In his sorrow this Old Testament figure said, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away" |
| 35 | golf | 5 | Bob Hope was quoted as saying this "is my profession. I tell jokes to pay my greens fees" |
| 36 | Dorothy Parker | 5 | Among the epitaphs she suggested for herself were "Excuse my dust" & "This is on me" |
| 37 | David | 5 | "And Saul said to" him, "thou art not able to go against this Philistine, for thou art but a youth" |
| 38 | Daniel | 5 | He was asked, "Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen...?" |
| 39 | Citizen Kane | 5 | 1941: "I think it would be fun to run a newspaper" |
| 40 | Airplane! | 5 | 1980: "I am serious, and don't call me Shirley" |
| 41 | (Douglas) MacArthur | 5 | Bartlett's cites both a WWI army song & him for the phrase "Old soldiers never die..." |
| 42 | W.C. Fields | 4 | His famous quote heard here is from the 1932 film "The Fatal Glass of Beer": "It's not a fit night out for man nor beast." |
| 43 | Vince Lombardi | 4 | He regretted saying, "Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing" |
| 44 | time | 4 | Ben Franklin said, "Dost thou love life? Then do not squander" this, "for that's the stuff life is made of" |
| 45 | The Graduate | 4 | No. 42: "Plastics" |
| 46 | The Godfather | 4 | It's the 1972 film with the timeless line "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli" |
| 47 | temptation | 4 | Sam Levenson joked, "Lead us not into" this; "Just tell us where it is; we'll find it" |
| 48 | television | 4 | Ernie Kovacs described it as "a medium, so called because it is neither rare nor well done" |
| 49 | Queen Victoria | 4 | Stuffy British monarch who said when she saw herself imitated, "We are not amused" |
| 50 | Muhammad Ali | 4 | In his prime this athlete said, It's hard to be humble "when you're as great as I am" |
These appear 8+ times. Memorize these first.
Jump to: Other | Poetry | British Literature | American Literature | Shakespeare | Children's Literature | Mystery / Thriller