“We can’t tell them anything”, I said, without thinking.
This is proper because when a person says something in the novel these (“”) must be used to isolate their words.
Look at this example as well:
According to Abraham Lincoln, “America will never be destroyed on the outside”. This means _________
<span>The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights.</span>