The study, based on the balanced part of the Cracow Corpus, examines collocation strength between verba dicendi and quote. Individual members of the semantic class of verba dicendi show a considerable difference according to the number of co-occurrences with and without a quote. Fager-McGowan coefficient was applied for computing the strength of the bond in question. Highest ratio of Fager-McGowan coefficient show neutral verbs as'mówic', (to speak), 'powiedziec' (to say), 'odpowiadac' (to answer), lowest denoting the manner of producing the voice as 'mamrotac' (to mumble), 'jeczec' (to groan). However a clear dependence between the meaning of a verb and the frequency of its co-occurrence with a quote cannot be tracked. Also the frequency of use of direct vs. indirect speech was investigated. Generally direct speech is much preferred, however some lexemes co-occur more frequently with indirect speech.