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Quotation marks with direct quotations

Direct quotations of a person’s words, whether spoken or written, must be in quotation marks.

Example sentence: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay “Self-Reliance.”

Do not use quotation marks around indirect quotations. An indirect quotation reports someone’s ideas without using that person’s exact words.

Example sentence: Ralph Waldo Emerson believed that consistency for its own sake is the mark of a narrow-minded person.

Sometimes you quote only a phrase within an indirect quotation.

Example sentence: Emerson was not criticizing all consistent behavior or thinking: he was concerned only with a “foolish consistency.”