10: different ways of punctuating a quote

Some alternative ways of presenting a quotation from the text:

Elizabeth doesn’t want to go to Pemberley. When Mrs. Gardiner suggests it, she thinks, ‘It would be dreadful!’ (p. 186)

Notice the use of the comma after 'thinks' because the phrase before is a fragment.

When Mrs. Gardiner suggests it, she rejects the idea: ‘It would be dreadful!’ (p. 186)

Here the colon works because 'she rejects the idea' is an independent clause.

When Mrs. Gardiner suggests it, she says that ‘[i]t would be dreadful’ (p. 186).

This is the integration of the quotation into your own sentence: the square brackets indicate a change from the original text.

Elizabeth finds Mrs. Gardiner’s suggestion to go to Pemberly ‘dreadful’ (p. 816).

This, in many ways, is the best choice. It doesn't say anything less than the others and allows you as a writer to move on to other ideas. The more targeted the evidence, the better.