100+ MLA Block Quote Examples: Perfect Formatting Made Easy

When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.

The rain fell steadily, washing away not just the dust but also the memory of what had happened years before.

She stood at the edge of the cliff, wind whipping through her hair, staring into the abyss below without fear.

Time passed slowly in that house, as though even the clocks were reluctant to move forward.

He had always believed in fate, but now he wondered if choices shaped destiny more than stars ever could.

Books were her refuge, her escape from a world that never quite made sense.

In the silence between heartbeats, she heard the voice she thought she’d forgotten.

There are moments when courage isn’t loud—it’s quiet, hidden in the decision to keep going.

The old man spoke little, but every word carried the weight of decades.

Dreams don’t die easily; they linger in corners of the mind, waiting for a spark.

It wasn’t love at first sight—it was something slower, deeper, like roots growing underground.

She left without saying goodbye because some farewells are too heavy for words.

“I told you not to come back,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “But here you are.”

“You think I’m afraid of you?” he laughed. “I’ve faced worse in my dreams.”

“This isn’t over,” she insisted. “Not by a long shot. You don’t get to walk away like nothing happened.”

“Sometimes,” he said, pausing to light a cigarette, “the truth hurts less than the lie.”

“Do you remember the summer we spent by the lake?” she asked. “I do. Every single day.”

“They say time heals everything,” he replied. “But some wounds just learn to bleed quietly.”

“Why did you leave?” “Because staying would have destroyed me.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said. “But intentions don’t erase consequences.”

“Are we really doing this?” “Looks like we are.”

“You were supposed to protect her,” he shouted. “And you failed.”

“I don’t need your forgiveness,” she said. “I just need you to know the truth.”

“What happens now?” “Now,” he said, “we survive.”

To exist is not merely to breathe, but to question why we do.

Truth is not found in answers, but in the persistence of inquiry.

We build identities from fragments of memory, desire, and regret.

Freedom is not the absence of chains, but the courage to choose despite them.

Morality is not absolute; it bends with context and intention.

Loneliness is not the lack of people, but the absence of understanding.

We fear death not because it ends life, but because it renders meaning uncertain.

Identity is not fixed; it evolves with every choice we make.

Hope is not passive waiting—it is resistance disguised as belief.

Knowledge does not liberate; it burdens with responsibility.

To love is to accept the inevitability of loss.

Wisdom begins where certainty ends.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood.

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table.

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.

I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions life has shown me,
Am compelled to murmur useful lies.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words.

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'

We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

Where there is no vision, the people perish.

The concept of hegemony refers not only to political dominance but to the cultural mechanisms through which power is normalized and internalized.

Feminist theory challenges the notion of objective knowledge by emphasizing situated perspectives and lived experience.

Postcolonial discourse seeks to deconstruct the binaries of center and margin, self and other, that underpin imperial narratives.

Narrative structure functions not merely as a formal device but as a means of shaping ideological interpretation.

The gaze, particularly the male gaze, constructs the female body as an object of visual consumption within patriarchal cinema.

Language does not reflect reality; it actively participates in constructing it through discursive practices.

Modernity is characterized not by progress alone, but by the simultaneous production of alienation and possibility.

Intersectionality reveals how systems of oppression such as race, gender, and class are interlocking rather than additive.

The archive is not neutral; it embodies the power structures that determine what is preserved and what is erased.

Ethnography demands reflexivity—the researcher must account for their positionality in the construction of knowledge.

Capitalism transforms social relations into transactional exchanges, commodifying time, labor, and emotion.

Myth operates not as falsehood but as a framework that naturalizes cultural values and historical contingencies.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Love thy neighbor as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Photosynthesis converts light energy into chemical energy, storing it in the bonds of glucose while releasing oxygen as a byproduct.

The double-helix structure of DNA allows for replication and transmission of genetic information across generations.

Newton’s first law states that an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an external force.

Climate change is driven primarily by increased concentrations of greenhouse gases due to human activity, especially fossil fuel combustion.

CRISPR-Cas9 enables precise gene editing by using a guide RNA to target specific DNA sequences for modification.

The central dogma of molecular biology describes the flow of genetic information from DNA to RNA to protein.

Black holes form when massive stars collapse under their own gravity, creating regions where spacetime curvature becomes infinite.

Antibiotics target bacterial cells without harming human cells by exploiting structural differences such as cell walls.

Quantum entanglement occurs when particles become correlated in such a way that the state of one instantly influences the other, regardless of distance.

The Big Bang theory posits that the universe began approximately 13.8 billion years ago from an extremely hot, dense state.

Neural networks simulate brain function by using interconnected nodes that process input data to recognize patterns.

Mitochondria generate ATP through cellular respiration, earning them the nickname 'powerhouses of the cell.'

Dear John, I write this letter not to blame you, but to explain why I cannot stay.

My dearest Emily, every day without you feels like a page missing from a book I’ll never finish.

Father, I hope this letter finds you well. I’ve made decisions you may not understand, but they were mine to make.

I never meant to fall in love with you. It happened quietly, like snow falling in the night.

To the person who found my journal: please return it. Some thoughts are not meant to be read.

My time is short, so I’ll be brief: I forgive you, and I hope you can forgive yourself.

You asked why I left. The answer is simple: I needed to find out who I was without you.

This war has changed me. I don’t know if I can come back to the man I was before.

I’m writing to say I’m proud of you. Not for what you’ve achieved, but for who you’ve become.

Sometimes love isn’t enough. That doesn’t make it any less real.

I kept your letters for years, rereading them when the loneliness became too much.

If you’re reading this, I’m already gone. Don’t mourn me—live fiercely in my place.

The city slept beneath a blanket of fog, its lights flickering like distant stars caught in a web.

Blood pooled on the floor, slow and thick, tracing a path toward the door like a message written in a language no one wanted to read.

She stepped into the forest, where sunlight filtered through the canopy in golden shards, illuminating dust motes that danced like fireflies.

The train moved westward, carrying secrets in its steel belly and ghosts in every passenger’s eyes.

Thunder rolled across the plains, a deep growl from a sky bruised purple and black.

Time in that village moved differently—slower, softer, as though the clocks themselves were dreaming.

He opened the box and found not treasure, but letters tied with ribbon, each one a piece of a life he never knew existed.

The ocean stretched endlessly, its surface broken only by the wake of a lone sailboat vanishing into the horizon.

Snow fell silently, covering footprints, names, and memories alike beneath a veil of white.

Her laughter echoed down the hallway, sharp and bright, cutting through years of silence.

The mirror showed not her face, but a version of herself she had buried long ago.

Every house on the street had a story, most of them sad, all of them untold.