Recent work on first person dialogue in conversation (“direct quotation”) assumes that quotation is undergoing rapid and large-scale change as a consequence of the emergence of BE like. In this chapter I merge archival and contemporary materials to explore the parameters of change across two longitudinal speech collections. My concern is the role of grammatical constraints on quotation, alongside evolution of the functional, pragmatic, and lexical repertoires. Drawing on parallel data from two varieties of English, I present a comparative variationist analysis of direct quotation, spanning the late nineteenth century to the present. Analysis reveals a longitudinal and multifaceted trajectory of change, resulting in a highly constrained variable grammar in which contextual factors can be seen to evolve and specialise. There is no evidence that recent changes are the result of new quotatives; rather, the system-internal evolutionary pathway that set the scene for BE like is laid bare.