diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index cd10635cf..18621853b 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -155,7 +155,7 @@ script: |
 
     if grep -Inr '\s$' kitty kitty_tests kittens docs *.py *.asciidoc *.rst .gitattributes .gitignore; then echo Trailing whitespace found, aborting.; exit 1; fi
 
-    if [[ -z $SANITIZE_ARG ]]; then $PYTHON test.py; else ./asan-launcher test.py; fi
+    if [[ -z "$SANITIZE_ARG" ]]; then $PYTHON test.py; else ./asan-launcher test.py; fi
 
     if [[ "$RUN_FLAKE" == "1" ]]; then flake8 --count .; fi