• Dialogue
• Direct Speech
• Signal Phrase
• Tom Swifty

Examples and Observations:

• "It's a polite Chinese custom to show you are satisfied," explained my father to our astonished guests.
  (Amy Tan, "Fish Cheeks." Seventeen magazine, 1987)
• "I'm here," she said, "because I'm a taxpayer, and I thought it was about time that my boys have a look at those animals."
  (Ralph Ellison, "On Being the Target of Discrimination." The New York Times, April 16, 1989)

• "Look at these," the man from Kentucky said, holding up a rib. "You could take these home and use them to make a skeleton."
  (Susan Orlean, "Lifelike." The New Yorker, June 9, 2003)
• "We gotta call the newspaper," a doctor said.
  "No," Werner said. He looked straight ahead, not at any of them. "I just want you to sew me up."
  (Jo Ann Beard, "Werner." Tin House, Fall 2006)
• 3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
  The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated,” and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.
  
  4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said” . . .
  . . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances "full of rape and adverbs."
  (Elmore Leonard, "Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle." The New York Times, July 16, 2001)