String containing both single and double quotes (apos

I want to hold a string containing both single and double quotes (apos
and quot) in a variable.

I enclose the XPath expression in double quotes, hence I'll have to use
entity references or numerical character references to refer to that
character from within the expression. Correct.

I enclose the string in single quotes, hence - I think - I'll have to
use entity references or numerical character references to refer to that
character from with the string. And this is wrong.

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <xsl:output method="text"/>
  <!-- quot ist 34 (x22), apos ist 39 (x27) -->
  <xsl:variable name="x"
    select="'&quot;O&apos;Reilly&quot;'"/><!-- wrong -->
  <xsl:template match="/">
    <xsl:value-of select="$x"/>
    <xsl:text>&#10;</xsl:text>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Trying to think about it a bit more logically, I find that XPath does
not require any of < > & to be treated specially, and that both entity
references and numerical character references don't have anything to do
with XPath - they're XML constructs.

So in this example, the XML parser resolves the references and the XPath
engine never gets to see them. Instead, it gets to see a syntax error.

It seems there is no way to include a single quote within a string that
is itself contained in single quotes. Conversely, the same applies for
double quotes. This is a bit hard to believe. Is it true?

* I can write the xsl:variable as an RTF, which offers much better
  readability.

* I can split the string according to whether single or double quotes
  occur in it and use the XPath 1.0 concat() function to make it whole
  again.

In 2.0, instead of an RTF, I'd have a temporary tree. What else has
changed that is of immediate interest to the problem at hand?