While we usually think of quotes as literal values, in Perl they function as operators, providing various kinds of interpolating and pattern matching capabilities. Perl provides customary quote characters for these behaviors, but also provides a way for you to choose your quote character for any of them. In the following table, a {} represents any pair of delimiters you choose. Non-bracketing delimiters use the same character fore and aft, but the 4 sorts of brackets (round, angle, square, curly) will all nest.
| Customary | Generic | Meaning | Interpolates |
| '' | q{} | Literal | no |
| "" | qq{} | Literal | yes |
| `` | qx{} | Command | yes (unless '' is delimiter) |
| qw{} | Word list | no | |
| // | m{} | Pattern match | yes |
| qr{} | Pattern | yes | |
| s{}{} | Substitution | yes | |
| tr{}{} | Transliteration | no (but see below) |
s {foo} # Replace foo
{bar} # with bar.