Quote within a quote: single or double marks?

Answered by The Citation Code teamOctober 29, 2026

The passage you are quoting already contains a quotation. Do the inner marks stay double, become single, or disappear? What happens at a third level, where does the period go when two closing marks meet, and does any of this change in a block quotation?

If your journal or court does it differently, reply below with its rule.

The team’s answer

Short answer. Your quotation takes double marks. A quotation inside it takes single marks, and a quotation inside that one goes back to double. A block quotation has no outer marks, so the passage keeps the marks its source printed.

The rules
[Convention] Marks alternate by level: double, single, double.
[Convention] Periods and commas sit inside the closing marks, inside both when a single and a double close together. Colons and semicolons go outside. Question marks and exclamation points go inside only when they belong to the quoted words.
[Convention] A block quotation has no outer marks, so the marks inside it stay as the source printed them.
[House style] Where a single and a double mark touch, put a no-break space between them so the reader can count them. The U.S. Reports leaves a space there too.
[House style] Keep the inner marks and say whose words they are, with (quoting ...), instead of leaving the reader to guess.

One phrase through two opinions and your brief (each read in the official text)
1. United States v. Moore, 95 U.S. 760 (1878), wrote on page 763, in its own words, that an executive reading of a statute “is always entitled to the most respectful consideration.”

2. Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024), quoted Moore on page 386, so Moore’s words took double marks. Set off as a block, the sentence keeps the marks the Court printed:

The Court also gave “the most respectful consideration” to Executive Branch interpretations simply because “[t]he officers concerned [were] usually able men, and masters of the subject,” who were “[n]ot unfrequently . . . the draftsmen of the laws they [were] afterwards called upon to interpret.”

3. In your own brief, quoting Loper Bright in your text, the Court’s words take double marks and Moore’s words inside them switch to single:
The Court has recalled that it historically “gave ‘the most respectful consideration’ to Executive Branch interpretations.” Loper Bright, 603 U.S. at 386 (quoting Moore, 95 U.S. at 763).

If someone later quotes your sentence, Moore’s words flip back to double: a third level. Three levels are correct but hard to read. If you only need Moore’s words, quote Moore and drop a level.

A word discussed as a word flips the same way. Michigan v. EPA put “appropriate” in double marks; in your sentence it becomes single:
The Court reasoned that “[n]o regulation is ‘appropriate’ if it does significantly more harm than good.” Michigan v. EPA, 576 U.S. 743, 752 (2015).

Common mistakes
Double marks inside double marks.
The period outside the closing marks: consideration’ ”. where consideration.’ ” is right.
Outer quotation marks added around a block quotation.
Inner marks dropped with no note and no (quoting ...).

Quote within a quote: single or double marks?

The team’s answer

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