diff --git a/internal/core/note_format.go b/internal/core/note_format.go
index 563f9cd..ced3977 100644
--- a/internal/core/note_format.go
+++ b/internal/core/note_format.go
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ import (
 	"fmt"
 	"regexp"
 	"time"
+    "strings"
 )
 
 // NoteFormatter formats notes to be printed on the screen.
@@ -32,6 +33,11 @@ func newNoteFormatter(basePath string, template Template, linkFormatter LinkForm
 			snippets = append(snippets, noteTermRegex.ReplaceAllString(snippet, termRepl))
 		}
 
+        //FIXME: if notes have `"` in their titles, they will break when 
+        //executing `zk graph --format json` as `Link:...` gets unescaped quotes 
+        //from `newLazyStringer`. Issue: https://github.com/zk-org/zk/issues/389
+        // escaping the quotes breaks tesh tests, but is the test perhaps 
+        // guarding a less robust solution?
 		return template.Render(noteFormatRenderContext{
 			Filename:     note.Filename(),
 			FilenameStem: note.FilenameStem(),
@@ -44,6 +50,7 @@ func newNoteFormatter(basePath string, template Template, linkFormatter LinkForm
 					return ""
 				}
 				link, _ := linkFormatter(context)
+                link = strings.ReplaceAll(link, `"`, `\"`) // breaks tesh test
 				return link
 			}),
 			Lead:       note.Lead,