Sometimes the speakers were great orators born with the ability to speak on without the aid of writers. Other times, quotes are derived from coarser sources: from pop culture, friends, misheard conversations, and offhand remarks.

Quotes are not necessarily highbrow. Owing to different languages and different historical contexts, quotes are different the world over. What's memorable to one group of people might not be memorable to another. What's more, since only the victors write history, marginalized groups often do not have a chance to have their quotes immortalized. Instead, the winners' words are deemed the truth and quoted in the history books. Quotes are offset by punctuation known as quotation marks.

Some quotation marks are curly, while others are straight. Many times, computer fonts and fixed-width fonts--that is, fonts in which each letter and character are the same width no matter what--tend to have straight quotation marks. Those interested in typography often appreciate the value of a rolling, curly quotation mark. Depending on the language, quotation marks can even be upright and facing downwards. German, for example, uses a different style of quotation mark than English.

Quotes are the first things to go viral, and perhaps owing to this, quotes are widely spread throughout the web. There are web pages devoted to gathering quotes. Image macros, a popular form of sharing ideas and graphics, have sprung up on message boards and social media sites. One recent trend is for quotes to be shared through image memes. A quote will be coupled with an image of the person being quoted or of something related to the content, and the quote itself will be embedded in the graphic.

People collect these images like they would textual quotes, and then they share them through their social networks. Pinterest is especially useful for sharing quotes, as it is a arena where graphics and words spread and share like crazy. The phrase "quote" can mean different things just beyond a spoken or written quotation. It has a variety of meanings in computer programming, for example. Quote has specific meanings in the financial realm as well. For example, a price quote is an example price worked up before a service is performed or a product is bought. An insurance quote is the projected cost. Quotes define a price. A particularly imperative thing not to do is quote out of context. Because quotes are so easily spread, it's important not to twist people's words and make them say things that were not intended in the source.