I thought of another situation.. what if you have single quotes inside double quotes or the other way? How will you handle that?
(Howard, hope you don't mind.. I borrowed a little from your script...) I added enhancements including multiple quote handling, file closing, better text formatting on printed messages....

Give this script a go:
code:
$Q = 0 
$R = 0
$C = 0 
if Open (1,$f) = 0 
 While @error=0 
  $L = READLINE(1)
  $M = LEN($L) 
  For $I = 1 to $M
  $A=asc(substr($L,$i,1))
   IF $A = 34 AND $R = 0
    $Q = $Q + 1 & 1
   ENDIF
   IF $A = 39 AND $Q = 0
     $R = $R + 1 & 1
   Endif
   If $A = 59 $I = $M
   Else
    If $Q|$R
     $C = $C + 1
    Else
     If $A > 32 AND $A < 127
      $C = $C + 1 
     Endif
    Endif
   Endif
  Next     
 Loop
$ = Close(1)
Else
 "$F?" ?
Endif
If $Q|$R
 "Mis-matched quotes. Probable score error." ?
Endif
"KixGolf score = " + $C
$f is passed on the commandline
$f=filename.kix

Brian