diff --git a/.github/scripts/cleanmd.pl b/.github/scripts/cleanmd.pl
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..251fe41316
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/scripts/cleanmd.pl
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env perl
+# Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al.
+#
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: curl
+#
+# Input: a markdown file, it gets modified *in place*
+#
+# The main purpose is to strip off quotes, lines starting with four spaces,
+# so that the result can be run through proselint better.
+#
+
+my $f = $ARGV[0];
+
+open(F, "<$f") or die;
+
+while(<F>) {
+    $_ =~ s/^    .*//g;
+
+    push @out, $_;
+}
+close(F);
+
+open(O, ">$f") or die;
+print O @out;
+close(O);
diff --git a/.github/workflows/proselint.yml b/.github/workflows/proselint.yml
index abfe950aaf..2be054ad20 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/proselint.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/proselint.yml
@@ -22,6 +22,9 @@ jobs:
     - name: install prereqs
       run: sudo apt-get install python3-proselint
 
+    - name: trim off quoted parts
+      run: find . -name "*.md" -print0 | xargs -0 -n1 .github/scripts/cleanmd.pl
+
     # config file help: https://github.com/amperser/proselint/
     - name: store proselint config
       run: |
diff --git a/libcurl-http/cookies.md b/libcurl-http/cookies.md
index 99b0b6787d..0d9576a628 100644
--- a/libcurl-http/cookies.md
+++ b/libcurl-http/cookies.md
@@ -60,9 +60,8 @@ the semicolon separator.
 ## Import export
 
 The cookie in-memory store can hold a bunch of cookies, and libcurl offers
-very powerful ways for an application to play with them. You can set new
-cookies, you can replace an existing cookie and you can extract existing
-cookies.
+powerful ways for an application to play with them. You can set new cookies,
+you can replace an existing cookie and you can extract existing cookies.
 
 ### Add a cookie to the cookie store
 
diff --git a/usingcurl/smtp.md b/usingcurl/smtp.md
index b915c6187e..14129d6c5a 100644
--- a/usingcurl/smtp.md
+++ b/usingcurl/smtp.md
@@ -94,7 +94,7 @@ to the mail server at `mail.example.com`, use:
 
     curl smtp://mail.example.com/client.example.com
 
-## No MX lookup!
+## No MX lookup
 
 When you send email with an ordinary mail client, it first checks for an MX
 record for the particular domain you want to send email to. If you send an