Here's a sentence from a book I am reading: You can con God, Granny said, if you do it with wit and charm. Why didn't the author place the words in quotes like this? “You can con God,” Granny said, “if you do it with wit and charm.”
Some authors simply don't use quotation makes for dialogue. Cormac McCarthy, for example. Also, others might not use them if that's a sentence relating something said in the past rather than contemporaneous dialogue.
Without context it's too difficult to tell. Possibly because the author is recounting something Granny once said, rather than something she is saying right now?
You know what? Come to think of it, I have noticed that in Cormac McCarthy's writing—that is, no quotation marks for dialogue. Weird. These here is on the judge, he said. Do you or do you not prefer quotes for dialogue?
Might change with context, but I'd have taken that as a paraphrase. As in Granny had conveyed that sentiment, but not in those words.
I think that is definitely it, Sifunkle. If it were the exact words spoken by Granny, then quotation marks would have been used. For a paraphrase, omit them.
