overshot the puck crossword clue quotation

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“Solving crosswords eliminates worries. They make you a calmer and more focused person.” – Will Shortz, New York Times crossword editor and NPR puzzle master.

If you’ve ever picked up a crossword puzzle and said to yourself, “I am not smart enough” or “I don’t have a big enough vocabulary for this,” please allow us to let you in on a little secret:

A crossword puzzle is not a test of intelligence, and solving is not really about the size of your vocabulary. Becoming a good solver is about understanding what the clues are asking you to do.

You can absolutely learn to do that. We’re here to let you in on some of the rules that most clues follow, and to teach you how to read those clues so that they become easier to solve. It would be impossible to cover every instance of clueing, but we can get you up and running.

We’ve even included some tips and encouragement from the puzzle pros to help keep you motivated, like our very funny friend, Megan Amram, a writer for television shows like “The Simpsons” and “The Good Place.” Ms. Amram is a devoted solver and has also made a puzzlethat ran in The New York Times.

“I understand how intimidating starting the crossword can be, but the bottom line is, believe in yourself. YOU ARE SMART ENOUGH TO DO THE PUZZLE. Look at me. I do The New York Times crossword puzzle every day, and I once tried to shoot a basket on the wrong hoop when I was on my 6th grade basketball team. Crossword puzzles are not about intelligence, they are about keeping your mind nimble and knowing what the sneaky trickster Will Shortz is asking of you. Show Will Shortz who"s boss by attempting the puzzle!”— Megan Amram

First, decide how you want to solve: Are you a print-only person? Do you enjoy the extra help that comes from playing on the web or on-the-go with the app? If you subscribe, you get access to all the daily puzzles and the archive. And once you log in, you can save your progress across all the digital platforms.

The Monday New York Times Crosswords are the easiest, and the puzzles get harder as the week goes on. Solve as many of the Mondays as you can before pushing yourself to Tuesday puzzles. You can thank us later.

This is probably a beginning solver’s most common mistake.You know what it’s like: You have some downtime on a Saturday and you look around for something to pass the time. Your officemate keeps bragging about his ability to finish The New York Times Crossword. You hate your officemate.

The Saturday crossword is actually the hardest puzzle of the week. Mondays have the most straightforward clues and Saturday clues are the hardest, or involve the most wordplay. Contrary to popular belief, the Sunday puzzles are midweek difficulty, not the hardest. They’re just bigger.

The answer to all of these clues is the same: “OREO.” Those delicious sandwich cookies are so popular in crossword puzzles that they’ve been dubbed by some as the “official” cookie of the crossword.

But we weren’t kidding you. There is a big difference between a Monday puzzle clue and a Saturday puzzle one. Late-week clues might require more specialized knowledge about these delicious treats.

If you’re just getting started, make your life easy and solve as many Monday puzzles as you can. Eventually, you’ll be ready for more of a challenge, and that’s when you move on to the Tuesday puzzles.

Once you’ve learned some of the shorter answers and how they are clued, you can almost be sure you’ll see them again. The brain works in weird and wonderful ways, and when you start solving crosswords consistently, you will feel really good when you can say, “Hey, I know that one!”

“Do more puzzles. The more you solve, the better you’ll get. It’s also useful to read Wordplay and other puzzle blogs, which helped me internalize the tricks and tropes of crossword clues while I was learning the ropes.” --Dan Feyer, seven-time champion of theAmerican Crossword Puzzle Tournament

And don’t worry if you make a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes. That’s what erasers and the backspace key are for. It even happens to advanced solvers, so don’t let it get you down if you don’t know something or need to change an answer.

“Try to solve as much as you can in each puzzle, and don"t stress when you can"t finish one. For the ones you don’t know, if it"s something way out of your knowledge comfort zone, look it up and read a bit more about it. It"s fun, really! There is no shame in missing an answer or not finishing the puzzle. The key is learning what you missed. The more puzzles you solve, the easier it gets.” — Howard Barkin, 2016 champion of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament

When you start a puzzle, get comfortable, pour yourself a glass of your favorite beverage — it’s important to stay hydrated — and then scan the clue list before solving.

Pick out the clues that are meant to be the easiest and tackle them first. See anything you definitely know? Those are your ‘gimmes.’ Are there any fill-in-the-blanks clues? Those are usually the easiest.

You already know more than you think you do. To borrow a sports term, a puzzle or individual clue on topics that you know well is said to be “in your wheelhouse.” You’ll be able to find at least a few entries in each puzzle that you know.

Let’s look at an example of why it pays to work those crossings. You might not see this in a Monday puzzle, but say the clue is “Black Halloween animal,” and you have confidently written in “CAT.”

Then you look at the entry that crosses the first letter of CAT and the clue is “Honest ___ (presidential moniker).” The answer to that one is ABE, so CAT must be wrong.

Conversely, you can also work your way through an answer that you can’t get completely by solving the crossings. Once you have enough letters filled in, take your best guess based on the pattern of letters you’ve uncovered.

Crosswords are ultimately learning tools, whether you’re learning some trivia or an interesting new word or phrase. When you look something up, you’re learning so you’ll know it for next time.

Of course, some solvers may tell you that looking up the answer to a clue is “cheating,” but to us, that way lies frustration and a path to giving up. And that’s no fun. Crosswords are a game, and games are supposed to be fun.

We’re big fans of the brain here, especially its incredible work ethic. But even brains get tired, so if you are stuck at some point in the puzzle, one of the best things you can do is put it down and take a break from it for a while.

I’m not sure how this works, but your brain will continue working on the clue in the background while you go about your day. When you come back to it, you might be surprised at the “Aha!” moment you experience when you thought you didn’t know the answer.

Your wheelhouse might be stuffed with sports trivia. Your BFF’s wheelhouse might be crammed to the rafters with a deep knowledge of opera. Vive la différence, right?

You know things your friend doesn’t know, and he or she knows things that you don’t know. That’s roughly twice as much stuff that you can solve, and it’s a good excuse to spend time together.

Solving a New York Times crossword is not easy, but it should be satisfying. Even if you only get a few answers the first few times, keep on solving. It just gets easier – and better – from there.

But don’t limit yourself. Try to master the skills you need to get started, and then push yourself to go further into the week. That’s where all of that devious, delicious wordplay is tucked into the clues, and where the fun in solving crosswords lies.

Clue: A crossword clue is a hint that the solver must decipher to find the answer that is then entered into the puzzle grid. Clues are not necessarily dictionary definitions; they can involve puns, anagrams and other types of wordplay.Crossing: The intersection between an Across entry and a Down one. Crosswords are intended to play fair with solvers, so a difficult or obscure entry will ideally cross a more “gettable” one.Entry:The answer to a clue that solvers write into the crossword puzzle. Entries that are part of a theme are called — wait for it — theme entries. Fun fact:In a typical American-style crossword, an entry must have at least three letters.

Fill:A general term for the words or phrases that fill a crossword.Fill-in-the-blank:A clue that contains a blank where the answer goes. One of the easiest types of clues to solve.Mini crossword:A 5x5 crossword offered by The New York Times. For comparison, the size of a Times daily crossword is 15x15 and the Sunday crossword is 21x21.

Thank you for visiting our website! Below you will be able to find the answer to Tinker Bell or Puck? crossword clue which was last seen in New York Times, on January 22, 2023. Our website is updated regularly with the latest clues so if you would like to see more from the archive you can browse the calendar or click here for all the clues from