Punctuating Unusual dialogue

douglass

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How would I punctuate the following:

Time is all we have, he wanted to say.
Time is all we have, he said to himself.
Time is all we have, they must have said.
Time is all we have, he heard his (dead) father's voice say.
Time is all we have, his father's words echoed in his mind.
He shrugged his shoulders as if to say, time is all we have.

Are all of these punctuated the same?
With quotation marks or not?

Thanks in advance for any guidance.
 

PeterL

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I would use a semi-colon, if I were putting them that way. I would consider turning them around and using a colon and quotation marks. I don't believe that using commas would be correct; that would create comma splices, and it would fail to distinguish the thought from the tag.
He wanted to say: "Time is all we have."
He said to himself: "Time is all we have."
They must have said: "Time is all we have."
He heard his (dead) father's voice say: "Time is all we have."
His father's words echoed in his mind: "Time is all we have."
He shrugged his shoulders as if to say: "Time is all we have."

They could also be separated with dashes.
 

douglass

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Thanks Peter.

So even though the dialogue is not vocalized it is always placed in quotation marks, correct?
 

PeterL

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Thanks Peter.

So even though the dialogue is not vocalized it is always placed in quotation marks, correct?

You are more than welcome, but there other ways to write those, and I'm sure that someone will suggest them. One way would be to use italics instead of quotation marks.
 

douglass

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You are more than welcome, but there other ways to write those, and I'm sure that someone will suggest them. One way would be to use italics instead of quotation marks.

I should add, I'm writing in third person POV and currently using italics only for direct thoughts.

Thanks again.
 

Chase

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I also think the quotes coming after colons are better. If the lines are thoughts, then they may be in italics rather than inside quotation marks.