Doing `.strip('\'"')` ditches both characters from left and right sides. You could do it the way you suggested, too:

```
$ python
Python 2.7.3rc2 (default, Apr 22 2012, 22:35:38) 
[GCC 4.6.3] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> '"\'foo\'"'.strip('\'"')
'foo'
>>> '"\'foo\'"'.strip('"').strip("'")
'foo'
>>> 
```

http://docs.python.org/2/library/stdtypes.html#str.strip