Enclosing embedded quotations in single quotation marks

In writing about literature, you may sometimes want to use a quotation that has another quotation embedded in it—when you are quoting dialogue in a novel, for example. In such cases, set off the main quotation with double quotation marks, as you usually would, and set off the embedded quotation with single quotation marks.

The following example from a student paper quotes lines from Amy Tan’s novel The Hundred Secret Senses.

Early in the novel the narrator’s half-sister Kwan sees—or thinks she sees—ghosts: “‘Libby-ah,’ she’ll say to me. ‘Guess who I see yesterday, you guess.’ And I don’t have to guess that she’s talking about someone dead” (3).

Related topics:

Using quotations appropriately (MLA)

Using the ellipsis mark to limit quoted material (MLA)

Using brackets and the ellipsis mark to indicate changes in a quotation

Using brackets to make quotations clear (MLA)

Indenting long quotations (MLA)

Using signal phrases to integrate sources (MLA)