Important Quotations
Ten short quotations you can use in three different answers are worth more than fifty you can only half remember.
How many, and how long
Ten per text is enough. Students who try to learn fifty end up with fifty approximate versions, and an approximate quotation is worse than none: it is an inaccuracy the examiner can see.
Keep them short. Between three and ten words is ideal. A long quotation eats examination time, fills your page with someone else's words rather than your analysis, and usually contains more than the point requires.
Choose for usefulness, not for beauty. The best quotation to learn is not the most striking line in the text; it is the one that can serve a character question, a theme question and a technique question.
Choosing your ten
One that establishes each main character
Usually something they say, early, that turns out to define them.
One for each main theme
A line where the theme is most concentrated — often a moment where a character states or refuses something.
Two from turning points
The moments after which nothing can go back. Almost every essay question touches one of these.
Two that show technique clearly
A striking image, or a piece of dialogue whose form is as revealing as its content.
One from the opening and one from the ending
These two together let you write about the whole shape of a text, which is worth a great deal.
How to use a quotation in a sentence
Do not drop a quotation in on its own line and expect it to argue for you. Weave it into your own sentence so that the sentence still makes grammatical sense when read aloud.
This is called embedding, and it is one of the clearest signals of a competent Literature answer.
Dropped, and embedded
Dropped in (weak): The father is proud. "I have managed thirty years without it." This shows he is proud.
Embedded (strong): The father's refusal — "I have managed thirty years without it" — turns his son's offer into an occasion for measuring his own endurance.
Embedded, shorter still: By counting "thirty years" the father converts a simple offer into a verdict on his own life.
Why this answer works
- In the weak version the quotation sits alone and does no work. The sentence before it and the sentence after it say the same thing.
- In the strong version the quotation is part of the writer's own sentence, and the sentence is doing the analysis.
- In the third version only two words are quoted, and they carry the whole point. Very short quotations, used precisely, are the mark of a confident answer.
- Use double quotation marks, copy the words exactly, and use three dots (…) if you leave anything out of the middle.
Learning them so they stay
- Write each quotation on a card, with the reason you chose it on the back — not the meaning, the use: character, pride, ch.4.
- Say them aloud. Quotations learnt silently are recalled approximately; quotations learnt aloud are recalled exactly.
- Test yourself backwards. Look at the reason and recall the quotation, not the other way round. That is the direction you will need it in the examination.
- Use each one in a written sentence at least twice. A quotation you have used is remembered; a quotation you have only read is not.
- If you cannot recall it exactly, refer to it instead. When the father refuses the money by counting his years is honest and gains credit. A misquotation does not.
A note on this site and quotations
RCF English does not reproduce complete copyrighted texts. Quotations on text pages are short, accurate and used for study and criticism, with the author and work named.
Nothing is invented. Where a quotation cannot be verified against the text, it is not published. If you find a quotation on this site that does not match your prescribed book, please report it — that is exactly the kind of error worth telling us about.