Use direct quotes sparingly. Only use them when the exact wording of the original is crucial to supporting your thesis OR when the language itself is the focus of your paper (MLA Handbook 100).
Examples of proper format:
“Nuclear safety measures, supported by business interests, drove the abandonment of US cities” (Otto 111).
If you include the author in your sentence, you leave it out in the citation:
Shelley thought poets “the unacknowledged legislators of the World” (794).
“Nuclear safety measures, supported by business interests, drove the abandonment of US cities,” writes Shawn Otto in a study of anti-scientific thinking (111).
NOTES:
1. If your quotation is longer than 3 lines, it should be set off as a block quote, see this page for more.
2. If quotation includes exclamation mark or question mark, include it in the quotation:
"Wow, this is a profound statement that requires an exclamation mark!" (Author 53).
3. Quotations within quotations. Nest an additional single mark:
"The direction words you're quoting that includes 'dialogue from a character'" (Author 70).
'"When the dialogue begins use single and double then single to end dialogue' and finish with complete sentence" (Author 35).
For more details visit this page in the MLA Handbook.