+@cindex special characters in markup mode
+@cindex markup mode, special characters
+@cindex reserved characters, printing
+@cindex printing special characters
+@cindex quoted text in markup mode
+
+A @code{\markup} block may also contain quoted text strings.
+Such strings are treated as minimal text expressions, and
+therefore any markup command or special character (such as
+@code{\} and @code{#}) will be printed verbatim without affecting
+the formatting of the text. Double quotation marks themselves
+may be printed by preceding them with backslashes.
+
+@lilypond[quote,verbatim,fragment,relative=1]
+d1^"\italic markup..."
+d_\markup { \italic "... prints \"italic\" letters!" }
+d d
+@end lilypond
+
+To be treated as a distinct expression, a list of words needs
+to be enclosed with double quotes or preceded by a command.
+The way markup expressions are defined affects how these
+expressions will be stacked, centered and aligned; in the
+following example, the second @code{\markup} expression is
+treated the same as the first one: