Exclamation Points Within Quotes & Sayings

Every second, another streak of silver glows: parentheses, exclamation points, commas
a whole grammar made of light, for words to hard to speak. — Jodi Picoult

Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. — Elmore Leonard

In Gospel grammar, death is not an exclamation point, merely a comma. — Neal A. Maxwell

She wrote to him fairly regularly, from a paradise of triple exclamation points and inaccurate observations. — J.D. Salinger

Mario, I wrote, to give myself courage, had not taken away the world, he had taken away only himself. And you are not a woman of thirty years ago. You are of today, take hold of today, don't regress, don't lose yourself, keep a tight grip. Above all, don't give into distracted or malicious or angry monologues. Eliminate the exclamation points. He's gone, you're still here. You'll no longer enjoy the gleam of his eyes, of his words, but so what? Organize your defenses, preserve your wholeness, don't let yourself break like an ornament, you're not a knickknack, no woman is a knickknack. La femme rompue, ah, rompue, the destroyed woman, destroyed, shit. My job, I thought, is to demonstrate that one can remain healthy. Demonstrate it to myself, no one else. If I am exposed to lizards, I will fight the lizards. If I am exposed to ants, I will fight the ants. If I am exposed to thieves, I will fight the thieves. If I am exposed to myself, I will fight myself. — Elena Ferrante

I bet when all the punctuation marks have a party, they quietly look at exclamation point's wife and think, that poor woman. — Dana Gould

I used to enjoy using dots where they would be least expected, not at the end of a sentence but in the middle, creating the effect ... of a skipped beat. It seemed to me the mind reacted - first! ... in dots, dashes, and exclamation points, then rationalized, drew up a brief, with periods. — Tom Wolfe

What is it with young women and exclamation points and smiley faces! So afraid of appearing somber, always wanting to appear light and happy and sparkling, even when they are dying inside. Not ever being able to escape the mask that smiles. She wants to write, really write someday. But she is not fully formed. So she does not write. Not really. Unless attempting to live is a form of attempting to write. The agony of becoming. This is what she experiences. The young girl. She would like to be someone, anyone else. She wants, vaguely, to be something more than she is. But she does not know what that is, or how one goes about doing such a thing. — Kate Zambreno

Note: When reading dry political theory, such as the texts you will find on the following pages, it may be useful to apply the Exclamation Point Test from time to time, to determine if the material you are reading is actually relevant to your life. To apply this test, simply go through the text replacing all the punctuation marks at the ends of the sentences with exclamation points. If the results sound absurd when read aloud, then you know you're wasting your time. — CrimethInc.

Love the overuse of exclamation points!!!! Yes!!! They add a lot of emphasis!!! to what your character is saying!!! — L.R.W. Lee

I will dance a little. I will move with the wind. I will give my body to my love and celebrate that we have substance beyond the idea of ourselves. We can move. We can touch. This is my physical exclamation point. This is how I can awaken my mind to the possibilities in the day. — Mary Anne Radmacher

You can't have many exclamation points left,' thought Anne, 'but no doubt the supply of italics is inexhaustible. — L.M. Montgomery

A pretty face had been damaged by acne scars and she wore and extra forty pounds on her frame like a threat. Her eyes were dull with anger disguised as apathy. If she kept on her current path, she'd grow into the type of person who fed her kids Doritos for breakfast and purchased angry bumper stickers with lots of exclamation points. But right now, she was just another in a long line of pissed-off small-town girls with a shitty outlook. — Dennis Lehane

Use lots of exclamation points. They love to be overused. — SARK

Like all planets, I turn in my sleep, I've been doing it
since before I was born.
My body is a nightmare
it hurts me every day.
I've been taught to resent it by boys
trying to forge themselves righteous through conquering.
They knew there was something wrong with me,
it was explained through hands
that spoke only in exclamation points. — Brian Ellis

It's about running wild in a field of exclamation points chasing question marks — Natasha Tsakos

Fundamentalist s live life with an exclamation point. I prefer to live my life with a question mark. — Amos Oz

Reg coughed repressively.Habit had made of the standard nouns and adjectives in his own vocabulary something merely conventional,like italics or points of exclamation.He sometimes found Laurie's conversation highly obscene,and would have voiced his disapproval to anyone he had liked less. — Mary Renault

I love to accent movement. The eye goes to where the white is - you know, the glove. And the feet, if you're dancing, you can put an exclamation point on your movement if it has a bit of light on it. So I wore the white socks. And for the design of the jacket, I would sit with the people who made the clothes and tell them where I wanted a button or a buckle or a design. — Michael Jackson

NO SHORTS or SANDAL!! This for your own protection.
Tomorrow's boot camp will be something SPECIAL! Meet in front of the maintenance shed at the north end of the quad at 10 A.M! Latecomers will be left behind and this is a day you will not want to miss!
- Adara -
I roll my eyes. Besides her overuse of exclamation points and her tendency to yell, the idea that we're doing "something special" in camp tomorrow is not exciting. It's terrifying. — Tera Lynn Childs

People complain about my exclamation points, but I honestly think that's the way people think. I don't think people think in essays; it's one exclamation point to another. — Tom Wolfe

But the teller of the comic story does not slur the nub; he shouts it at you - every time. And when he prints it, in England, France, Germany, and Italy, he italicizes it, puts some whooping exclamation-points after it, and sometimes explains it in a parenthesis. All of which is very depressing, and makes one want to renounce joking and lead a better life. — Mark Twain

Men can't use exclamation points in texts... it's weird. We also don't say [stuff] like 'yay'. — Jacinta Howard

The blood pumping through her veins when she landed a vault like that one always felt like exclamation points. — Caela Carter

F. Scott Fitzgerald believed inserting exclamation points was the literary equivalent of an author laughing at his own jokes, but that's not the case in the modern age; now, the exclamation point signifies creative confusion. All it illustrates is that even the writer can't tell if what they're creating is supposed to be meaningful, frivolous, or cruel. It's an attempt to insert humor where none exists, on the off chance that a potential reader will only be pleased if they suspect they're being entertained. Of course, the reader isn't really sure, either. They just want to know when they're supposed to pretend to be amused. — Chuck Klosterman

Never use three exclamation points when one will do. — Christine Edwards

Changing the world, one exclamation point at a time. — Jon Glaser

When speaking aloud, you punctuate constantly - with body language.
Your listener hears commas, dashes, question marks, exclamation points, quotation marks as you shout, whisper, pause, wave your arms, roll your eyes, wrinkle your brow.
In writing, punctuation plays the role of body language. It helps readers hear the way you want to be heard. — Russell Baker

This is what they mean by epiphanies. I am almost thinking in exclamation points. — Claire Hennessy

One should never use exclamation points in writing. It is like laughing at your own joke. — Mark Twain