Quotes in a literary analysis are like sampling a song for a beat. The work of the original artists should lend a sense of authority and familiarity to your work, but make sure that the song/essay you create is still a new work created by you and only using the quotes when necessary.
As long as you use quotation marks and cite the work you are sampling then you are free to integrate the author's words directly into your sentence.
Unoka, Okonkwo's father, "was poor" and "people laughed at him because he was a loafer" (Achebe 5).
If you prefer you can also introduce your quotes using some of the stems below. You still need to make sure to have the citation.
The some of the following information is taken from the Purdue Online Writing Lab
The main problem with using quotations happens when writers assume that the meaning of the quotation is obvious. Writers who make this mistake believe that their job is done when they’ve chosen a quotation and inserted it into their text. Quotations need to be taken from their original context and integrated fully into their new textual surroundings. Every quotation needs to have your own words appear in the same sentence. Here are some easy to use templates* for doing this type of introduction:
Templates for Introducing Quotations
X states, “__________.”
As the world-famous scholar X explains it, “________.”
As claimed by X, “______.”
In her article _______, X suggests that “_________.”
In X’s perspective, “___________.”
X concurs when she notes, “_______.”
You may have noticed that when the word “that” is used, the comma frequently becomes unnecessary. This is because the word “that” integrates the quotation with the main clause of your sentence (instead of creating an independent and dependent clause).
Now that you’ve successfully used the quotation in your sentence, it’s time to explain what that quotations means—either in a general sense or in the context of your argument. Here are some templates for explaining quotations:
Templates for Explaining Quotations
In other words, X asserts __________.
In arguing this claim, X argues that __________.
X is insisting that _________.
What X really means is that ____________.
The basis of X’s argument is that ___________.