How do you learn quotes efficiently?

The prospect of an exam for which you need to learn quotes always seems daunting, but if you go about picking your quotes in a way which helps you not only memorise them, but use them efficiently, then you'll go into the exam feeling confident and ready. This is how I learn quotes for works of literature, and I think it's a fairly reliable method.

1. List the key themes: This should be fairly straightforward as you will probably have gone over these in class, but it can't hurt to sit and have a think on your own about what you think is essential to the work. A great way to do this is by drawing a spider-diagram/mind-map. 4-6 themes is a good number, because you don't want too few or too many.

2. Go through the work with a highlighter: This may take a while, but it's the only way to collect a long list of relevant quotes. Of course, it helps if you're already doing this when you start studying the work! Keep an eye out for phrases or sentences which encapsulate key ideas in the work or which illustrate a situation.

3. Write down or type up the quotes you've highlighted: Before doing so, draw up categories for each theme. This way, when you write down or type up the quotes, you can put them directly under the relevant heading. Remember: many quotes can be linked to several different themes!

4. Get memorising! Do this however best suits you, whether it be by writing quotes down or saying them out loud, or both. This bit is pretty mechanical, but by collecting the quotes yourself, you've already been thinking about how they tie in with the themes you'll want to talk about. 

And that's all there is to it!