system 'perl', '-E', 'say 12345;';; ## Works! 12345 system 'perl', '-E', 'say "hello world";';; ## Doesn't work. system 'perl', '-E', 'say \"hello world\";';; ## Doesn't work. system 'perl', '-E', '"say \"hello world\";"';; ## Works! hello world system 'perl', '-E', '\"say \"hello world\";\"';; ## Doesn't work, Can't find string terminator '"' anywhere before EOF at -e line 1.