First scan for punctuation, looking for commas, apostrophes, quotation and question marks. These clues, as well as letter and word patterns, help in decoding. Once you think you have a letter, test it by substituting throughout the code.

Look for:

Single letter words that represent a or I;

The--the most common word, often beginning sentences;

e--the most common letter;

th--a frequent combination at the start, middle and end of words.

Two two-letter words with the same first letters may be:  it is, if it, as an, or of.

When i is third-to-last letter, try ing first.

A repeated letter in the middle of a four-letter word is almost always ee or oo.

A repeated letter at the ends of a four-letter word indicates that, ease, else, high, says and others, but check that first.

A double letter at the end of a word is usually ss, ll or ee.

People is a popular cryptogram word--look for repeats of first-fourth and second-sixth letters.

Letters following an apostrophe are s, t, d, re, ve, and ll. An n precedes ’t.

It helps to reread what you have and to sound out the words.

Except for Anon an' On, Decodaquote® features quotations with the author's name following. Some names supply clues: