A Hive statement of the form below does not seem to escape single quotes as expected. 
 
insert into table x values ('Jim', 'O\'Brien');
 
whereas the following is inserted as expected.
 
insert into table x select 'Jim', 'O\'Brien'; 
 
The former fails for inserts made using the HUE editor and over JDBC with records being inserted as:
 
O\'Brien.