diff --git a/release.sh b/release.sh
index d53111966..a391717a3 100755
--- a/release.sh
+++ b/release.sh
@@ -137,7 +137,7 @@ prerelease=0
 # see if the version has a hyphen in it. Crude,
 # but semver doesn't support postreleases so anything
 # with a hyphen is a prerelease.
-echo "$release" | grep -q '-' && prerelease=1
+echo $release | grep -q '-' && prerelease=1
 
 if [ $prerelease -eq 1 ]; then
     echo Making a PRE-RELEASE
@@ -163,7 +163,7 @@ if [ -z "$skip_changelog" ]; then
     yarn run allchange "$release"
     read -p "Edit $changelog_file manually, or press enter to continue " REPLY
 
-    if [ -n "$(git ls-files --modified "$changelog_file")" ]; then
+    if [ -n "$(git ls-files --modified $changelog_file)" ]; then
         echo "Committing updated changelog"
         git commit "$changelog_file" -m "Prepare changelog for $tag"
     fi
@@ -290,7 +290,7 @@ if [ -n "$signing_id" ]; then
     curl -L "${gh_project_url}/archive/${tarfile}" -o "${tarfile}"
 
     # unzip it and compare it with the tar we would generate
-    if ! cmp --silent <(gunzip -c "$tarfile") \
+    if ! cmp --silent <(gunzip -c $tarfile) \
          <(git archive --format tar --prefix="${project_name}-${release}/" "$tag"); then
 
         # we don't bail out here, because really it's more likely that our comparison
@@ -322,7 +322,7 @@ release_text=$(mktemp)
 echo "$tag" > "${release_text}"
 echo >> "${release_text}"
 cat "${latest_changes}" >> "${release_text}"
-hub release create $hubflags "$assets" -F "${release_text}" "$tag"
+hub release create $hubflags $assets -F "${release_text}" "$tag"
 
 if [ $dodist -eq 0 ]; then
     rm -rf "$builddir"