Does an epigraph need quotation marks?

No. An epigraph is set off by its position and its typography, so it carries no quotation marks, and the attribution — the source, on its own line below — usually does not either. It sits apart from the text the way a title does, not inside it the way a quotation does.

When does a quotation become a block quote?

The convention is around a hundred words of prose, or two or more lines of verse — shorter quotations run into the text inside quotation marks. The block form also takes over for letters, transcripts and anything where the line breaks of the original matter, whatever the length.

Do I need permission to quote a song lyric as an epigraph?

Often, yes. Brief quotation for review, commentary or parody has a fair-use argument; using a lyric or a poem as decoration does not, because it substitutes for the work rather than commenting on it. Song lyrics and poetry are aggressively enforced. The epigraph at the front of a book is the single most common permission request in publishing.

What is a pull quote?

A line lifted out of the nearby text and set large, in the display face, to pull the reader through a spread — a device from magazines that nonfiction borrowed. It repeats content that is also in the text, which makes it print-only decoration; in an ebook it duplicates the words and a screen reader reads them twice.

Epigraphs, block quotes, and pull quotes

Borrowed text comes into a book through three doors, and the doors matter because each element carries a different job, a different typography, and a different legal weight.

An epigraph sets a tone: a quotation placed at the opening of the book or a chapter, standing before the text. A block quote carries content: a quotation too long or too shaped to run inside a paragraph. A pull quote sells the page: a line repeated out of the text nearby, set large. Confusing them is the commonest quotation mistake, and each has a signature failure.

The epigraph

The epigraph belongs to the threshold. At the front of the book it speaks for the whole; at a chapter opening it speaks for what follows. It is set apart — usually italic, smaller or at the text size depending on the design — with no quotation marks, and the attribution on its own line below, often right-aligned or flush to a fixed margin.

The conventions that get broken in self-published books:

No quotation marks. The position does the quoting. Marks make an epigraph read as dialogue.
The attribution carries the source, not the other way round. A short line — a name, a work, a date — on its own line, not run into the quotation as a sentence.
It stands before the text. An epigraph shares the chapter-opening page with the title, above the first paragraph. A quotation dropped into the middle of chapter one is a block quote wearing an epigraph’s clothes.
Short. An epigraph is a keyhole view: a few lines at most. It is the one quotation in the book that exists for atmosphere, and length kills atmosphere.

In an ebook the epigraph survives well — it is short, and reading systems exempt display elements like it from the reader’s body-text settings, the exemption formatting for KDP describes. Keep it as a styled block, not as manually italicised paragraphs.

The block quote

The block form exists because a long quotation run inside a paragraph is unreadable: the reader needs to see where the other voice begins and ends. The convention draws the line at roughly a hundred words of prose, two or more lines of verse, or any quotation — however short — where the original lineation matters.

Set as its own block, indented — on both sides or the left alone, per the design — at the text size or slightly smaller, with no quotation marks, and the attribution after it. Details that separate a professional result:

A quotation of several paragraphs indents every paragraph. The old convention of additional indent on the first line of each is a newspaper habit; book typography indents them evenly.
Do not italicise the block. Italics inside it survive from the original; the block form itself is the signal that these words are not yours.
Never set a block quote larger than the text. The block is subordinate to the running text — an aside the page steps aside for — and size reverses the relationship.
The punctuation stays with the quotation. A block quotation that is a complete sentence ends with its own full stop; a fragment introduced by the sentence does not.

In an ebook the block quote keeps its indents and its separation, and gains a semantic identity: reading systems and screen readers can announce it as quoted material. That identity comes from the block being a real element rather than indented paragraphs, which is also what keeps it exempt from the reader’s font overrides.

The pull quote

The pull quote is not a quotation in the same sense at all: it is display typography, a line lifted from the text a page or two away and set large in the display face to pull the scanning eye through a spread. Magazines invented it; business and narrative nonfiction borrowed it; fiction never touches it.

Two rules keep it honest. It must be verbatim from the text it quotes — a pull quote that paraphrases is a claim the page cannot support. And it must be used sparingly: one in a chapter is a highlight; three is wallpaper. It is the loudest element on the page and loudness that repeats stops working.

It is also the one element that has no ebook life. A pull quote repeats text the reader has read or is about to read; on a reflowable screen it does double duty as an interruption, and a screen reader reads the passage twice. Designs that export pull quotes to EPUB either drop them or demote them — which is the correct behaviour, not a limitation.

Permission: the part with consequences

Brief quotation for commentary, criticism or review has a fair-use (or fair-dealing) argument: the quotation is analysing something. This covers most block quotes in nonfiction.
Decoration does not. An epigraph quotes because the words are beautiful or resonant — it substitutes for reading the work, and that is the case fair use least protects. Song lyrics and poetry are the aggressive end of this: rights holders track epigraph use, and “I found it online” is not a licence.
Public domain — works whose copyright has expired — needs nothing. Quoting Shakespeare, Austen or anything pre-1920s in most jurisdictions is free and clear.

The practical protocol: for an epigraph from a living or recently-published author, seek permission — publishers respond to epigraph requests routinely, and the request is one email. For quoted material inside a work of commentary, keep it brief and attributed and you are on the ground fair use occupies. And when a book is sold internationally, remember the analysis is per-jurisdiction: fair use is American law, and it travels badly.

The three elements are also three different structures — a threshold, a block, a display — and books that treat them as three flavours of italic text lose the distinctions on the page and in the export.

Nueel keeps an epigraph, a quotation and a pull quote as separate semantic blocks, so each is set correctly by the design in print, keeps its identity in the EPUB, and loses nothing when it crosses to a format that has no use for it.

Common questions

Does an epigraph need quotation marks?: No. An epigraph is set off by its position and its typography, so it carries no quotation marks, and the attribution — the source, on its own line below — usually does not either. It sits apart from the text the way a title does, not inside it the way a quotation does.
When does a quotation become a block quote?: The convention is around a hundred words of prose, or two or more lines of verse — shorter quotations run into the text inside quotation marks. The block form also takes over for letters, transcripts and anything where the line breaks of the original matter, whatever the length.
Do I need permission to quote a song lyric as an epigraph?: Often, yes. Brief quotation for review, commentary or parody has a fair-use argument; using a lyric or a poem as decoration does not, because it substitutes for the work rather than commenting on it. Song lyrics and poetry are aggressively enforced. The epigraph at the front of a book is the single most common permission request in publishing.
What is a pull quote?: A line lifted out of the nearby text and set large, in the display face, to pull the reader through a spread — a device from magazines that nonfiction borrowed. It repeats content that is also in the text, which makes it print-only decoration; in an ebook it duplicates the words and a screen reader reads them twice.