What the difference between " " and ' '

Sometimes I see words put into standard quotation marks, and then, other times I see single quotation marks (e.g., "The Lord of the Rings" or 'The Lord of the Rings').  What is the diffrence and when should I use each type?

I swear, I haven't learned grammer in school since the third grade, so I am forced to teach myself. 

G'day Anon,

My English teacher told me that when quoting spoken text I should use "..." and when quoting written text I should use '...'.

See ya

Stannum

My mother said, "If you ever say 'damn' again, you'll have no dinner".

Yes, terminal punctuation inside the quote is American, and the rest of the world follows the logical practice of placing them outside.

Anyway, the single/double quote is also, I think, an American thing - we just about NEVER use single quotes except for the quote-within-a-quote situation described by Philip. Even for a single word, I use double quotes. It's logical to me to use single quotes to refer to a word (use 'a' there, not 'the,' for example), but not American style.

Back in the Late Middle Ages (Philip is just a little oder than I am), it was underline a book or a magazine but double quote the name of an "Article in the Magazine." I think, even now, I'd double-quote the name of the article and italicize the name of the magazine.