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You should never have a quotation standing alone as a complete sentence, or, worse yet, as an incomplete sentence, in your writing. A good analogy describes quotations as helium balloons. We all know what happens when you let go of a helium balloon: it flies away. In a way, the same thing happens when you present a quotation that is standing all by itself in your writing, a quotation that is not "held down" by one of your own sentences. The quotation will seem disconnected from your own thoughts and from the flow of your sentences. Ways to integrate quotations properly into your own sentences are explained below. Please note the punctuation: it is correct.
There are at least four ways to integrate quotations.
*NOTE: In no case should you use the following style: "This quote shows..." either before or after introducing a quotation.
*NOTE: The piece used in the examples below is a chapter, not a book, which is why it is in quotes rather than underlined.
1. Introduce the quotation with a complete sentence and a colon.
Example: In Where I Lived, and What I Lived For, Thoreau states directly his purpose for going into the woods: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived" (22).
Example: Thoreau's philosophy might be summed up best by his repeated request for people to ignore the insignificant details of life: "Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!" (41).
Example: Thoreau ends his essay with a metaphor: "Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in" (17).
This is an easy rule to remember: if you use a complete sentence to introduce a quotation, you need a colon after the sentence.
2. Use an introductory or explanatory phrase, but not a complete sentence, separated from the quotation with a comma.
Example: In Where I Lived, and What I Lived For, Thoreau states directly his purpose for going into the woods when he says, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived" (22).
Example: Thoreau suggests the consequences of making ourselves slaves to progress when he says, "We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us" (78).
Example: Thoreau asks, "Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life?" (211).
Example: According to Thoreau, "We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us" (200).
You should use a comma to separate your own words from the quotation when your introductory or explanatory phrase ends with a verb such as "says," "said," "thinks," "believes," "pondered," "recalls," "questions," and "asks" (and many more). You should also use a comma when you introduce a quotation with a phrase such as "According to Thoreau."
3. Make the quotation a part of your own sentence without any punctuation between your own words and the words you are quoting.
Example: In Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,"Thoreau states directly his purpose for going into the woods when he says that "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately...and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived" (22).
Example: Thoreau suggests the consequences of making ourselves slaves to progress when he says that "We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us" (200).
Example: Thoreau argues that "shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous" (118).
Example: According to Thoreau, people are too often "thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails" (11).
Notice that the word "that" is used in three of the examples above, and when it is used as it is in the examples, "that" replaces the comma which would be necessary without "that" in the sentence. You usually have a choice, then, when you begin a sentence with a phrase such as "Thoreau says." You either can add a comma after "says" (Thoreau says, "quotation") or you can add the word "that" with no comma (Thoreau says that "quotation.")
4. Use short quotations--only a few words--as part of your own sentence.
4. Use short quotations--only a few words--as part of your own sentence.
Example: In Where I Lived, and What I Lived For, Thoreau states that his retreat to the woods around Walden Pond was motivated by his desire "to live deliberately" and to face only "the essential facts of life" (166).
Example: Thoreau argues that people blindly accept "shams and delusions" as the "soundest truths," while regarding reality as "fabulous" (118).
Example: Although Thoreau "drink[s]" at "the stream of Time," he can "detect how shallow it is" (221).
Integrating Quotes into Literary Analysis
Integrating Quotes into Literary Analysis
The following are snippets of actual high school student essays that illustrate how to smoothly integrate quotes into a literary analysis. Notice how naturally the quotes blend into the essays, yet they provide evidence for the writers’ analyses.
From an essay on A GATHERING OF OLD MEN
Throughout literature, river imagery indicates a passage of time. Time is not controllable and does not "turn back" (116). Neither is it cyclical like many aspects of life. A river is always sweeping toward the future. Gil Boutan stops for a moment at the riverside on his way to Marshall and notices that, "The river was grayish blue and very calm" (116). It is no accident that Gaines portrays the image of progress as "grayish-blue" for they are the colors of the uniforms of the Union (gray) and Confederate (blue) fighting soldiers in the Civil War. The calmness of the water bespeaks of the unhurried but sure movement of the river toward its destination, of time bringing changes that are sure if slow. Notice that the gray predominancy of color also connotes the winner of the Civil War.
Gil's father, Cajun Fix Boutan, used the river to support his family in years past. Now, "white people," outsiders to the Bayonne area, have bought up the river property. Gil's father can no longer depend on the river to aid his family and is forced to move to the bayou with its "dirty brown shallow" (132) water, its "serpent-like shape" (132), and its "weeping willow boundaries" (132). Symbolically, Fix used the slave-like African-Americans in the past like personal servants at his beck and call. He had often taken the law into his own hands as a vigilante group leader.
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From an essay on Baldwin’s GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN
Baldwin presents more opposing images as cleanliness and dirtiness appear throughout the book. John tries to clean his home and the church, to rid these places of their insistent, habitual dust and dirt, figuratively their sins and imperfections . He routinely sweeps up the dirt in his living room and his church only to be disappointed when the wind carries more back to him. On a sub-textual level, John is trying to scrub his own soul clean of the dirt of sins committed but perhaps not quite understood yet. By the end of the novel, John has weighed cleanliness and dirtiness of the soul on a set of scales in his mind and experiences an epiphany when John's spiritual awakening happens. The narrator reveals, "The light and the darkness had kissed each other, and were married now, forever, in the life and the vision of John's soul" (212). With his coming of age, John has made peace with both sides of the scales in his soul. He finds a balance that Richard, Royal, and Gabriel were not able to find. It will be his salvation in an emotional sense for years to come.
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From Macbeth, Act I, Scene V, lines 37-51
Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy demonstrates her determination to accomplish royal murder, her ambition to gain royal power. She calls on hell’s own demons with the plea “Come you spirits,” to gird her “blood” from allowing any pity for the murder victims to enter her soul. She commands the demons to “unsex” her and remove her feminine instincts while filing her with “direst cruelty.”Finally, Lady Macbeth orders the night to shroud her in such darkness that she cannot see the fatal wound she inflicts nor should “heaven [be able to] peep through the blanket of darkness” to discover her deeds. Lady Macbeth’s indomitable will sets Macbeth on the irreversible course toward destruction and downfall with her haughty and demanding words. She will meet those summoned demons in her sleep later in the play as the guilt of the murders preys on her soul, and she will take her own life trying to escape the clutches of memory.
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From an essay analyzing John Cheever’s essay, “The Reunion”
Charlie grows increasingly uneasy and embarrassed in his father’s presence. As they enter an empty restaurant, his father hails the waiter with a “boisterousness that seemed out of place,” (21). So begins Charlie’s silent judgment. His becomes a withdrawn spectator. With obnoxious commands and caustic language, Charlie’s father tries to control and intimidate. He cross-questions Charlie and orders the waiter like a trained animal. His impatience leads to derisive commands - “Get us another table,” sarcastic condescension - “Chop-chop,” and false ingratiation - “If it wouldn’t be above and beyond the call of duty" (45). Throughout this spree, Charlie follows his father from restaurant to restaurant. As his father threatens and throws tantrums, one wonders who the adult in the group really is.
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From an essay on Fitzgerald’s THE LAST TYCOON
Stahr seems to be a typical Hollywood playboy that goes to extravagant parties and sees love as a game to play: a game that he has gotten good at. That night is different and so is the girl. She isn’t what Stahr is used to and probably not what he is looking for, she is “not a pretty girl, for there are none of them in Lost Angeles" (210).
There is something about her, though, something that Stahr cannot hide from. Stahr seems to be held captive by her aura for “as he walked toward her, the people shrank back against the wall till they were only murals" (111). This use of imagery creates a universal feeling of being a “prisoner” in someone’s eyes. Whatever else is happening in that room no longer concerns Stahr. He has been taken captive by her radiance.
As they dance, she becomes “momentarily unreal” to Stahr. They leave this world when “they stepped through a mirror into another dance with new dancers whose faces were familiar but nothing more” (55). They enter the world of love, with others who are also experiencing the same phenomenon. There may be an attempt of small talk or chit chat on the dance floor, but what is not being said speaks louder than any words could ever say, “her eyes invited him to a romantic communion of unbelievable intensity" (56).
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