Star Quotes

Read our submission tip article here about copyright and cutting-and-pasting of quotes. Potential opyright issues aside, this policy is in place for two reasons:

1) TV.com doesn't want to look as if we took another site's entire page(s) of material and dumped it here.

2) We want folks to pick the best quotes. Without such a policy, some contributors tend to be rather... generous about quoting everything a star has ever said.

Please follow TV.com's standardized quote format. Bold the speaker name. Don't bold the colon. Type a single space after the colon. Then include the quote without using overall quotation marks. Contextual material is in parentheses or brackets and then italicized, and should either be the first line before the quote, or be after the speaker name: either is acceptable.

First name or full name can be used for the speaker name. Either or both on the same page is acceptable.

You don't need to put the source in the quotes, just in Comments.

Titles (movie, TV, song, etc.), are either italicized, bolded, or in quotation marks. Use one consistent format on the page, or go with the one that's already there. Names (people, band, product, corporation) are not special formatted.

Examples:

Chuck: (about his role in "Gandhi the Musical"): It was the greatest experience of my life.

or

(about his role in "Gandhi the Musical")
Chuck: It was the greatest experience of my life.

Character quotes are not personal biographical quotes and should not be submitted on the Person's page. Stand-up routines, monologues, political speeches, song lyrics, written works of fiction, etc., are not personal quotes either. The only exception here is a unique trademark line, such as "I'll be back." A star rarely has more than one or two unique trademark lines: otherwise they're no longer unique. Use a contextual comment to indicate it's a trademark line.

Quotes about a project, unless it has some personal significance to the speaker, aren't acceptable.

Bad:
Billy Bob: Walking Papers is about a boy, Billy, and his dog, Scamp.

Good:
Billy Bob: Walking Papers is based on my experiences growing up with my dog Scamp.

Quotes should be significant and interesting biographical statements made by the person in question about their own lives. Other peoples' quotes shouldn't be submitted. A star's quote about another person shouldn't be submitted unless it has some personal significance for them.

Bad:
Billy Jo: Bill Johnson moved to Los Angeles in 1964.

Good:
Billy Jo: When Bill Johnson moved to Los Angeles in 1964, he taught me everything I know about acting.

Reality star quotes that they make on an episode of a show should almost always be submitted for the show.

Like Trivia, Quotes should be relatively short and concise. If you feel the need to start a new paragraph in the middle of a quote, it's probably too long. Quotes shouldn't be more then a reasonlably-sized paragraph long.

Question & answer interview-type quotes are not acceptable. However, often the interview question can be rewritten and used as context.

Bad:
Interviewer: So why do you hate Jean Jones so much?
Jim Bob: She is an overbearing obnoxious actress who always tries to upstage me, and has ruined my life.

Good:
(about Jean Jones)
Jim Bob: She is an overbearing obnoxious actress who always tries to upstage me, and has ruined my life.

Please avoid inserting in extraneous amounts of white space. This includes but is not limited to putting in excess white space at the beginning of paragraphs, extra line spacing between paragraphs, and extra hard returns at the end of the last line of an entry.

Appearances

You cannot enter information in this section, but it's important to read nonetheless. Remember to click on the Credits tab or the All Appearances link to see everything, including movie listings.

As noted above, if an Appearance is listed here then it doesn't need to go into Trivia.

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Next column: Old Seasons Old Shows
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Previous columns:

Write Like You Talk
Sourcing Your Material
Know Your Capitals!
A Matter of Timing
Soundalikes and You
Periods and Commas and Colons, Oh My!
Apostrophes, Hyphens, and Quotation Marks, Oh My!
Numbers and You
New Season New Shows
How to Write a Better Biography (1)
Tips on Trivia (2)