[1][2] The main part of the programme consisted of a non-competitive quiz where the chairman asked each of three panellists (originally four) in turn to identify where a certain quotation, phrase or saying comes from.
Other parts of the programme were devoted to answering queries from listeners about the sources of quotations and the origins of everyday phrases and idioms.
They include Tom Stoppard, Peter Cook, Peter Ustinov, Ned Sherrin, Judi Dench, Alan Bennett, Denis Healey, David Attenborough, Kingsley Amis, Kenneth Williams, Douglas Adams, John Mortimer, Neil Kinnock, Celia Haddon, Katharine Whitehorn, Julian Mitchell, Malcolm Muggeridge and Lord George-Brown.
In later years the main male reader was Peter Jefferson, formerly of BBC Radio 4, who took over from William Franklyn when that actor died in 2006.
The programme's theme tune, between which snatches of quotations were inserted at the beginning of each show, was "Duddly Dell", written and performed by Dudley Moore; it had been the B-side of the single "Strictly for the Birds" (1961).