Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 111):
In reporting, the status of the two parts is unequal — the projected figure is dependent on the projecting: hence the projected figure is clearly construed as belonging to a different, second-order plane of reality — a reality that is made up of meaning, as it were. In quoting, on the other hand, the two have equal status as independent figures; the projected figure is thus projected as if it was part of the same first-order reality.