The "Please click one of the Quick Reply icons in the posts above to activate Quick Reply." message means you must click the button to the right of the "Quote" button, which is the "Quick Reply" button to quickly reply to a post. The quick reply option is a faster way to post a response, as you do not need to go to another page to reply to the post, which you would need to do if you hit the "Quote" button.
The Quick Reply option requests that you press the button so the YorkieTalk forum software knows which post in the thread you are replying to.
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smiley does work as well.