Punctuation of quoted sentence used as a subject of outer sentence

Question

I know the rules of punctuation when interrupting a sentence of dialogue, but how do you punctuate the end of a quoted sentence which is used as the subject of another sentence?

He picked up after the third ring, and I reported the situation.

“I'll be there with the moving company in half an hour, but I'm sending a team to reinforce the men at your place right now. They should be there in eight minutes [?] ” was his reply.

or

"I know that I know nothing [?]" is a quote attributed to Socrates.

What punctuation mark(s?) should go in place of [?] ? The full stop of the prior sentence? A comma before the consecutive closure? Nothing at all?

Answer 1

In regard to your first quote, nothing is special about it other than that you are considering the latter portion as a subject of "was his reply." But since the quote is two sentences long, why are you not considering both sentences its subject? That being said, with dialog we usually do not consider the attributive portion as a predicate, although I suppose one could.

To answer your question, I would modify the first quote like this:

“I'll be there with the moving company in half an hour, but I'm sending a team to reinforce the men at your place right now. They should be there in eight minutes,” was his reply.

Your second example is different in that the quote is indeed the subject. Thus it needs no comma and can simply be written:

"I know that I know nothing" is a quote attributed to Socrates.