diff --git a/src/rc/kakrc.kak b/src/rc/kakrc.kak
index a1236e69..15254ba6 100644
--- a/src/rc/kakrc.kak
+++ b/src/rc/kakrc.kak
@@ -4,10 +4,11 @@ hook global BufCreate (.*/)?(kakrc|.*.kak) %{
 
 hook global WinSetOption filetype=kak %{
     addhl group kak-highlight
-    addhl -group kak-highlight regex \<(hook|addhl|rmhl|addfilter|rmfilter|exec|source|runtime|def|echo|edit|set[gbw])\> 0:green,default
-    addhl -group kak-highlight regex \<(default|black|red|green|yellow|blue|magenta|cyan|white)\> 0:yellow,default
+    addhl -group kak-highlight regex \<(hook|addhl|rmhl|addfilter|rmfilter|exec|source|runtime|def|echo|edit|set[gbw])\> 0:green
+    addhl -group kak-highlight regex \<(default|black|red|green|yellow|blue|magenta|cyan|white)\> 0:yellow
     addhl -group kak-highlight regex (?<=\<hook)\h+((global|buffer|window)|(\S+))\h+(\S+)\h+(\H+) 2:blue 3:red 4:cyan 5:magenta
-    addhl -group kak-highlight regex (?<=\<regex)\h+\S+ 0:magenta,default
+    addhl -group kak-highlight regex (?<=\<regex)\h+(\S+) 1:magenta
+    addhl -group kak-highlight regex \s(["'])(?:\\\1|.)*?\1\s 0:magenta
     addhl -group kak-highlight regex (?<=\<set[gbw])\h+(\S+)\h+(\S+) 1:magenta 2:red
 }