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`<q>` HTML inline quotation element

Baseline

Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

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The <q> HTML element indicates that the enclosed text is a short inline quotation. Most modern browsers implement this by surrounding the text in quotation marks. This element is intended for short quotations that don't require paragraph breaks; for long quotations use the <blockquote> element.

Try it

<p>
  When Dave asks HAL to open the pod bay door, HAL answers:
  <q
    cite="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/quotes/?item=qt0396921&ref_=ext_shr_lnk">
    I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
  </q>
</p>

q {
  font-style: italic;
}

Attributes

This element includes the global attributes.

cite: The value of this attribute is a URL that designates a source document or message for the information quoted. This attribute is intended to point to information explaining the context or the reference for the quote.

Examples

html

<p>
  According to Mozilla's website,
  <q cite="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/history/details/"
    >Firefox 1.0 was released in 2004 and became a big success.</q
  >
</p>

Result

Technical summary

Content categories	Flow content, phrasing content, palpable content.
Permitted content	Phrasing content.
Tag omission	None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory.
Permitted parents	Any element that accepts phrasing content.
Implicit ARIA role	`generic`
Permitted ARIA roles	Any
DOM interface	`HTMLQuoteElement`

Specifications

Specification
HTML # the-q-element

Browser compatibility

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This page was last modified on Nov 10, 2026 by MDN contributors.

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