text: what does "quote within a quote" mean? i am a typist and often the person recording is dictating a quote.  they then will say "quote within a quote".  i am unclear if that means that you start the sentence with " and then within the sentence/quote that you then place this symbol around a word '    i hope this makes sense. yes, that's correct.  begin the quote with double quotes, then use single apostrophe to indicate the inside quote.  if the qwq and the original quote end on the same word, be sure to include both the ' and the ".