In Windows,
>perl -e "print $ARGV[0]" "test"
test
>perl -e "print $ARGV[0]" \"test\"
"test"
>perl -e "print $ARGV[0]" "\"test\""
"test"

Ug, this is very broken:
>perl -e "print $ARGV[0]" "te\st"
te\st
>perl -e "print $ARGV[0]" "te\\st"
te\\st
>perl -e "print $ARGV[0]" "te\"st"
te"st
>perl -e "print $ARGV[0]" "te\\"st"
te\st

Alternate (older?) quoting mechanism:
>perl -e "print $ARGV[0]" """test"""
"test"
>perl -e "print $ARGV[0]" """Nevermore"""", quoted the raven."
"Nevermore", quoted the raven.