This puzzle is like an acrostic, except that the "quote" consists of further clues. Reading down the first letters of the answers spells "THE ANSWER IS BACCALAUREATES", as indeed it is. The answers and clues are:
People who met Columbus | Taino |
What it's all about | Hokey Pokey |
Swelling of the organs | edema |
She had much joy in death | Anne Boleyn |
Emergency number | nine-one-one |
The condition of having a rank equivalent to ``mate'' in the British navy | sublieutenancy |
The author of "The Care of the Pig" | Whiffle |
A vector taken to a multiple of itself under a linear transformation | eigenvector |
Type of fabric | rayon |
Modern day Babylon | Iraq |
Gerry Adams' organization | Sinn Fein |
Circumcision feast | bris milah |
Botany Bay native | Australian |
You are here | Cambridge |
Ivy in Harlem | Columbia |
One in a quintillion | atto |
"If you like ukulele ______" | lady |
Before the flood | antediluvian |
Astronomical cub | Ursa Minor |
Freedonian president | Rufus T. Firefly |
Greenland founder | Erik the Red |
An angry insect (?) | Acrostic |
City in alabama | Tuscaloosa |
Animal with tusks | elephant |
Horse Feathers password | swordfish |
2006 MIT Mystery Hunt