I've seen it done in so many different ways; if your scripts starts with a quote, or another piece of text on a black screen, what is the best way
to present this in a screenplay?

I've seen:

1) BLACK SCREEN

SUPER: Text.


and

2) BLANK SCREEN


SUPER: Text.


Online script of PUlp Fiction just has the  PULP [pulp] quote with no indication of a black screen, but I don't know if that's taken directly from the screenplay.


Thanks for your answers in advance.

I've seen -


OVER BLACK

SUPER: "asldfjlasdjflj"

FADE IN:

Your job is to make sure the reader understands what you mean. Either of your examples will do. Wether the screen should be black, blank, white or anything in between are really editing choices.

I've also seen.

OVER BLACK: (YOUR TEXT)

Did it as follows in a script a year or so ago-

Quote over black screen:

“[insert quote]"
   - [insert author]

FADE IN:

Thanks for your answers. Seems there is not a standard way to do this; I'll have to pick what I think is the most appropriate, In my case, it is a verse from the Old Testament.

The director will probably ignore you anyway and may not even use the quote, so it doesn't matter. Put it over a green screen if you want to.

Why not be a little more imaginative and have the quote written in a book, or, or...

  David Webb Peoples's 1984 script for Unforgiven (when it was known as 'The William Munny Killings') has it written like this (can't remember it if was on a black background):


       WRITTEN WORDS (crawl)
                   Of good family, albeit one of
                   modest means, she was a comely
                   young woman and not without
                   prospects.  Therefore it was at
                   once heartbreaking and astonishing
                   to her mother that she would enter
                   into marriage with William Munny, a
                   known thief and murderer, a man of
                   notoriously vicious and intemperate
                   disposition.

Quoted from Grandma Bear Your job is to make sure the reader understands what you mean. Either of your examples will do. Wether the screen should be black, blank, white or anything in between are really editing choices.

Exactly - clarity rules the day.