[MarceColl]

that's correct, but its not that it denotes a symbol as a different function of ', its the same function. Turn code into data. That's all symbols are (in CL at least).

For example in a quoted list, you dont need to quote the symbols because they are already in a quoted expression!

'(hello hola)

' really just says "do not evaluate whats next, treat it as data"

[MarceColl]

to be a bit more precise, everytime you have a name in common lisp that is already a symbol. But it will get evaluated. If its as the first item of an evaluated list it will be looked at in the function name space, if elsewhere it will be looked up at the variable name space. What quote is doing is just asking the compiler not to evaluate it and treat it as data.