In order to determine how to punctuate the phrase that comes before a quotation, you need to know whether the phase is an independent clause.  Here, you have three options:

1. When the quotation ends the sentence and there is no citation, place the period inside the quotation marks.

Scott informed Zelda, “You must stop jumping into fountains.”

2. If the quotation comes at the end of the sentence and then there is a parenthetical citation, place the period to the right of the citation.

In his famous speech “The Ballot or the Bullet,” Malcolm X observes, “The government has failed us. You can’t deny that” (45).

She knows she is no longer safe, saying, “I feared for my Safety in this wicked House” (28).

Macbeth says, “Life’s but a walking shadow” (5.5.24).

Interestingly, Malcolm X distrusted both white conservatives and liberals and “never voted for either political party” (Guzman).