<em>Quotation marks</em> ( quotes, speech marks, inverted comas, talking marks) are punctuation marks used in pairs to set off direct speech, a quotation or a phrase. The pair consists of the opening quotation marks and closing quotation marks.
Quotation marks set apart a direct quotation. An example: My mother said <em>"don't do it"</em> when I wanted to enter her room.
Quotation marks are also used to mark a title, a direct speech or a square quote.
