OK, then I need to understand more about shells. For example, when I enter
<code>
echo "SELECT x'c3a1', hex('á');" | sqlite3
á|C3A1
</code>
it obviously works as it should. I'm starting in bash, then piping to sqlite, then back to bash. This is what was confusing me: sqlite is working in this case but not from the stand-alone CLI.