If the string you have contains one, then you should use the other. For example, "You're able to do this", or 'He said "Hi!"'. Other than that, you should simply be as consistent as you can (within a module, within a package, within a project, within an organisation).
If your code is going to be read by people who work with C/C++ (or if you switch between those languages and Python), then using '' for single-character strings, and "" for longer strings might help ease the transition. (Likewise for following other languages where they are not interchangeable).
The Python code I've seen in the wild tends to favour " over ', but only slightly. The one exception is that """these""" are much more common than '''these''', from what I have seen.
