Q. What is the rule regarding quotations within parentheses within sentences—and, additionally, multisentence quotations in same? I know that this is correct: You’ll never catch him working out (repetitions? routine? forget it). But is this correct? You’ll never catch him working out (“No reps and routines for me. I can’t stand them.”).
A. Putting more than one complete sentence in parentheses in the middle of another sentence doesn’t work. We don’t recommend it! If the quotation is from a written source, the original punctuation must be preserved, but if you are quoting something spoken, you can change the period to a semicolon or dash and omit the ending period. Please see CMOS 6.13.