What the difference between direct and indirect speech?

Direct speech implies a direct discourse, that uses the actual words of the speaker to report it.

Indirect speech refers to indirect discourse that delineates what a person said, in own words.

Direct speech describes when something is being repeated exactly as it was - usually in between a pair of inverted commas ... Indirect speech will still share the same information - but instead of expressing someone's comments or speech by directly repeating them, it involves reporting or describing what was said.