Iunderstand that “time is of the essence” i just need to find my keys so we can leave!

which punctuation mark should be placed after the close quotation mark?

comma
semicolon
period

The punctuation mark that should be placed after the close quotation mark is a period. A period is used at the end of the sentence to indicate where the sentence fully stops. In the example given above, it is made up of two complete sentences with different thoughts each. Therefore, it should be written like this: I understand that "time is of the essence". I just need to find my keys so we can leave!

It is the poet alfred, lord tennyson himself