How To Punctuate Dialogue Within A Quote. Direct dialogue is when you quote exactly what a person is saying. To signal a quotation within a quotation, use single quotes:
If you are incorporating a quotation featuring both exposition and a character’s speech into your text, use double quotation marks around the quotation and single quotation marks around the character’s speech that is within the quotation: Do not use quotation marks to set off an indirect quotation. ?) inside the quotation marks.
The first nested quote would then be inside single quotation marks, and a quote within that quote would be in doubles.
Lawson] called out the name [gogol] in a perfectly reasonable way, without pause, without doubt, without a suppressed smile, just as he had called out brian and erica and tom. This particular question falls under quotations within a quotation. Have you read 'hills like white elephants' yet? he asked her. Enclose the spoken word within quotation marks and use a comma.