The Storytellers Forum Don't Quote Me

I'm looking for help on the use of quotation marks.  I know all of the rules, except one, and it's driving me insane.  It's also amazing to me how often I've needed to use this lately.  Okay, here goes...

I know that the punctuation always goes inside the quote in dialogue, but what about when you are using the quotation marks to indicate a quote?  It never looks right to me to have the punctuation inside the quote in those cases.  Here are a couple of examples...

Was this, by any chance, inspired by the movie, "Across the Universe?"
I'm absolutely crazy about the song, "Revolution!"
My favorite book has always been "To Kill a Mockingbird."

See what I mean?  In these cases, it doesn't seem right to me to have the punctuation inside the quote.  Can anyone tell me the absolute rule?  HELP!

      In those cases, the end punctuation goes OUTSIDE the quotation marks.

 

According to the AP style guide, which I have a copy of, Never is there an instance where punctuation appears outside of quotation marks. It simply isn't done. The error is in that titles should not appear in quotes, but in italics. I just looked this up and it is definative.

Titles of books - and titles of paintings and names of ships - are italicized; titles of short stories, songs, television series episodes (as opposed to the title fo the series itself), etc., are written in quotes.
 

Mikel, isn't (or wasn't) there a rule about using quotations around the titles of songs and poems but italicising novel titles or movie titles?  Seems like I read or was taught that at one time years ago.

Never mind.  I just read Weaver's post.  Missed it the first go around.

Also, in the case of this sentence   I'm absolutely crazy about the song, "Revolution!"
  I believe the exclamation should be outside the quotations since you are using it to express how you feel.  It should only be inside the quotation if it is part of the title of the song and then you would use a different punctuation outside the quote to actually end your sentence.  The word "Revolution" is not your sentence, but only part of it.  I don't think you would use the comma in that sentence either since you are just naming the song.  I could be wrong on that, but it seems strange to do so given the structure of the sentence.  The whole sentence is what you are saying and not just the word Revolution.

Okay, I'm still just as confused, but at least I know what I'm going to do.  That's what looks right to me.  If I'm putting a title in and punctuation is needed after it, it's going outside the quote, just because it looks better and makes more sense to me.  So, right or wrong, that's what's gonna happen!