  When the time difference quotients, or variational slopes, of quasar light
curves are plotted against their absolute magnitudes, there is a tight positive
correlation of $\sim 0.16$ dex in the variational slope direction or $\sim 0.5$
dex in the absolute magnitude direction. This finding resulted in suggestions
that a variational slope -- luminosity relation could be used as a distance
indicator. However, I show that this relation can be explained almost entirely
from self-correlation with luminosity. After properly accounting for the
self-correlation component, the relation has a true scatter of $\sim 1.5$ dex
in luminosity, consistent with established correlations for quasar variability
amplitudes. Given this large scatter, correlation with variational slope or
variability amplitude and luminosity is not by itself a suitable distance
indicator for quasars.
