He staggered in, late as usual, his hair this way and his collar the other. His socks were as mismatched as were his principles. I thought to myself, here comes yet another disastrous sales meeting.
It seems to me too much to write :
I thought to myself 'Here comes yet another disastrous sales meeting'.
The Authorised Version deliberately did away with punctuated speech, retaining only the capital to indicate the beginning of a quote but leaving out quotation marks.
Can I therefore do the same in common writing, for my thoughts ?
I thought to myself, Here comes yet another disastrous sales meeting.
I cannot find another question on EL&U which covers this.
Best Answer
The Handbook of Good English suggests the following:
You can find plenty of examples of each in books:
Whatever you do, the important thing is to be consistent.