Question Mark And Quotes & Sayings

Like the scorpion's question mark
drawn in the pollen on the canvas of the sky and of our brains at midnight — Aime Cesaire

So begins a question which has of late become more and more urgent: what is the relation of aesthetics to politics? — Mark Poster

It meant nothing to him any longer, only a faint tinge of sadness
and somewhere within him, a drop of pain moving briefly and vanishing, like a raindrop on the glass of a window, its course in the shape of a question mark. — Ayn Rand

Identity. That's my elephant. The thought came with certainty, without the question mark on the end this time. Not fame, exactly, though recognition was some kind of important cement for it. But what you were was what you did. And I did more, oh yes. If a hunger for identity were translated into, say, a hunger for food, he'd be a more fantastic glutton than Mark ever dreamed of being. Is it irrational, to want to be so much, to want so hard it hurts? And how much, then, was enough? — Lois McMaster Bujold

He wanted more than anything in the world to embrace her. But it seemed out of the question. Then she turned to him and stretched out her arms. And he went to her as if he had been born for it. — Mark Helprin

There's a need, too, for a special name in order to distinguish between this present world and the former world in which the police carried old-fashioned revolvers ... 1Q84 - that's what I'll call this new world. Q is for 'question mark'. A world that bears a question. — Haruki Murakami

In the 'west' success is defined in purely material terms. He with the most money wins ... We should question, speak out and work for a better society with a whole different definition of what is deemed a successful artistic life. — Mark A. Brennan

We are always hearing of people who are around seeking after the Truth. I have never seen a (permanent) specimen. I think he has never lived. But I have seen several entirely sincere people who thought they were (permanent) Seekers after the Truth. They sought diligently, persistently, carefully, cautiously, profoundly, with perfect honesty and nicely adjusted judgment- until they believed that without doubt or question they had found the Truth. That was the end of the search. The man spent the rest of his hunting up shingles wherewith to protect his Truth from the weather. — Mark Twain

I turn and look at Hunter, whose face is one giant question mark. "I've made a mistake," I try to explain to him. "I said yes to you for the wrong reasons and I'm sorry. I really am. — Jessica Brody

It is funny, but it strikes me that a person without anecdotes that they nurse while they live, and that survive them, are more likely to be utterly lost not only to history but the family following them. Of course this is the fate of most souls, reducing entire lives, no matter how vivid and wonderful, to those sad black names on withering family trees, with half a date dangling after and a question mark. — Sebastian Barry

The real question for me is, do people have the tools that they need in order to make those decisions well? And I think that it's actually really important that Facebook continually makes it easier and easier to make those decisions ... If people feel like they don't have control over how they're sharing things, then we're failing them. — Mark Zuckerberg

Once she had thrown a square of birch bark into the fire when her father came in the door. He might then have asked her why her quill pen had shaped a row of straight and crooked question marks and after each one an exclamation point
in rows of ten, perhaps forty running along
?! ?! ?! ?!
arranged in pairs or couples. If he had asked her what is this folderol and what can this nonsense mean she would have said the same she said when shaping them with her pen, one pair, one couple after another. Each question mark stands for my ignorance and asks if I may learn and know the answer. And each exclamation point stands for my surprise at how little I know, my amazement at my vast ignorance, my utter astonishment at how much there is for me to learn. — Carl Sandburg

want to ask you a question." He nodded. "Take me to the dance next weekend." He tilted his head to the side and frowned. "Lilly, that was not in the form of a question. A question is a request that ends with a question mark. What you just said was a statement. — Amber L. Johnson

Whenever I start a novel, I'm always looking for two things: a bit of science that makes me go 'what if?' and a piece of history that ends in a question mark. — James Rollins

I like poetry when I don't quite understand why I like it. Poetry isn't just a question of wrapping something up and giving it to someone else to unwrap. It just doesn't work like that. — Mark Haddon

All evil seems to arise from the desire to dominate others. Most men in our society are taught from a very early age to try to dominate. It isn't something that they think about consciously. It operates at a subconscious level. They are taught by the adults around them and their peers. Someone dominates them and they in turn try to dominate others. They do it without even realizing it and they do it without even thinking about why. It is without question. In their conscious awareness they may aspire to grandiose ideals but their actions speak for what really motivates them from a subconscious level. — Mark Alberto Yoder Nunez

You win a race, the next race it's a question mark. Are you still the best or not? That's what is funny. But that's what is interesting. And that's what is challenging. You have to prove yourself every time. — Michael Schumacher

Lyric:
"The keywords you have entered are 'I' and 'damaged', question mark.
" Do you want to ask, Am I damaged?
"Do you want to ask, Have I damaged?
'Damaged', adjective: defaced mutilated, mangled, impaired, injured, disfigured. Latin damnum, meaning loss or hurt. — A.F. Sanchez

Savannah, darlin'?" "Yes, Mama. Come in." Her mother opened the door a crack, then slipped into the room, carrying the largest, most extravagant bouquet of wildflowers Savannah had ever seen. Wildflowers that smelled of lilac and honeysuckle and the outdoors. She breathed deeply and sighed, looking at her mother in question. "Asher Lee," she said, "is downstairs." Savannah felt her mouth tilt up into an involuntary smile and her eyes flood with tears. Her mother set the bouquet on her vanity and put her arm around Savannah. "Whatever he did, he's awful sorry, button." "He yelled at me and made me cry." "Guessing he didn't mean whatever it is he said." "He thinks I want him to change." "Well, of course you do," said her mother matter-of-factly, swiping at Savannah's tears with the corner of her sunflower apron. "We all want to change the men we love. Leave our mark on them." "Oh, I don't lov - " "Of course you don't. I was just makin' conversation. — Katy Regnery

Adopted children are self-invented because we have to be; there is an absence, a void, a question mark at the very beginning of our lives. A crucial part of our story is gone, and violently, like a bomb in the womb — Jeanette Winterson

If you do a character, always make the character with a big question mark. Even if the character is very enigmatic and all over the place, make him always with a question mark, because if you turn a question mark upside down, like they do in South America in Spanish, then it becomes a hook. — Peter Stormare

In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. — Bertrand Russell

Procrastination most often arises from a sense that there is too much to do, and hence no single aspect of the to-do worth doing ... Underneath this rather antic form of action-as-inaction is the much more unsettling question whether anything is worth doing at all. — Mark Kingwell

Questions about God's existence, self disclosure, saving action and almighty power reminded me of my inadequacies. For me the theo in theology had become little more than a question mark. I could confidently discuss philosophy, psychology and social change, but God made me uneasy. — Thomas C. Oden

One of the greatest sins in any story is false suspense. The kind of 'suspense' that disintegrates the moment you give your reader one second to think about it. And it's an easy trap to fall into, so watch carefully for it. If your story hinges on the question, 'Will Superman be pushed so far in his battle against Lex Luthor that he'll have to kill him?', or if your big cliffhanger moment is, 'Wow, is Spider-Man really dead this time?', then I understand Food Lion is hiring. — Mark Waid

The key to a successful relationship isn't just in the words, it's in the choice of punctuation. When you're in love with someone, a well-placed question mark can be the difference between bliss and disaster, and a deeply respected period or a cleverly inserted ellipsis can prevent all kinds of exclamations. — David Levithan

A little farther on, he said, "What do you think of India?" "It's a hard question," I said. I wanted to tell him about the children I had seen that morning pathetically raiding the leftovers of my breakfast, and ask him if he thought there was any truth in Mark Twain's comment on Indians: "It is a curious people. With them, all life seems to be sacred except human life." But I added instead, "I haven't been here very long. — Paul Theroux

The crystal ball has a question mark in its center. There are some fundamental choices to be made. We will either choose to continue to wage a hopeless war to preserve the existing architecture for copyright by upping the stakes and using better weapons to make sure that people respect it. If we do this, public support for copyright will continue to weaken, pushing creativity underground and producing a generation that is alienated from the copyright concept. — Lawrence Lessig

I was looking into a darkened hallway, lined with a washing machine and dryer, and a few brooms and mops held in clamps on the wall. I put a hand on the doorknob and turned very slowly and quietly. It was unlocked. I took a deep breath - - and very nearly fell out of my skin as a horrible, shattering scream came from inside. It was the sound of anguish and horror and such a clear call for help that even Disinterested Dexter moved reflexively forward, and I had one foot actually inside the house when a tiny little question mark scuttled across the floor of my brain and I thought, I've heard that scream before. And as my second foot moved forward, farther into the house, I thought, Really? Where? The answer came quite quickly, which was comforting: it was the same scream that was on the "New Miami" videos that Weiss had made. - which meant that it was a recorded scream. - which meant it was intended to lure me inside. - which meant that Weiss was ready and waiting for me. — Jeff Lindsay

The question I ask myself like almost every day is, 'Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?' ... Unless I feel like I'm working on the most important problem that I can help with, then I'm not going to feel good about how I'm spending my time. And that's what this company is. — Mark Zuckerberg

Arin remmembered seeing her hand in Javelin's mane, curling into the coarse strands. This made him remember the almost freakish lenghth between her littlest finger and thumb as her hand spanned piano keys. The black star of the birth-mark. He saw her again in the imperial palace. Her music room. He'd seen that room only once. About a month ago, right before Firstsummer. Her blue sleeves were fastened at the wrist.
Something tugged inside him. A flutter of unease.
Do you sing? Those had been her first words to him, the day she had bought him. A band of nausea circled Arin's throat, just as it had when she had asked him that question, in part for the same reason. She'd had no trace of an accent. She had spoken in perfect, natural, mother-taught Herrani. — Marie Rutkoski

Uncertainty is a tender state, and there is infinite beauty inside that tenderness. But like all tender things, it is fragile. A question mark can be steamrolled into something flat, unless someone is willing to say that sometimes the mystery is enough, and that, until we can do better, we should let it be what it is. — L. E. Henderson

Abomination . . ." The word escaped him in a slow breath. "And more besides," I agreed. "Now forgive me." Father Gomst found his wits at last, but still he held back. "What do you want with me, Lucifer?" A fair question. "I want to win," I said. He — Mark Lawrence

It is not known that Litvinoff's favorite flower was the peony. That his favorite form of punctuation was the question mark. That he had terrible dreams and could only fall asleep, if he could fall asleep at all, with a glass of warm milk. That he often imagined his own death. That he thought the woman who loved him was wrong to. That he was flat-footed. That his favorite food was the potato.That he liked to think of himself as a philosopher. That he questioned all things, even the most simple, to the extent that when someone passing him on the street raised his hat and said, "Good day," Litvinoff often paused so long to weigh the evidence that by the time he'd settled on an answer the person had gone on his way, leaving him standing alone.
These things were lost to oblivion like so much about so many who are born and die without anyone ever taking the time to write it all down. — Nicole Krauss

Elementary schools get it right in the first place - they're multidisciplinary and use fuzzy logic, and you're making and doing things. So are doctoral studies. You enter as a question mark and leave as a question mark. — Ken Robinson

I think there was always that question mark of why am I not in St. Louis anymore? I think everybody had those questions and probably had those perceptions of me. — Kurt Warner

The "who" question does not seek answers from God as much as it seeks God himself. The one who asks who seeks to grow in deeper understanding of who God is and who we are, because when we're suffering, what we need more than answers - even helpful, biblical ones - is God and an assurance of our identity in Christ. — Mark Driscoll

Let me pose you a question. Can farm-raised salmon be organic when its feed has nothing to do with its natural diet, even if the feed itself is supposedly organic, and the fish themselves are packed tightly in pens, swimming in their own filth? — Mark Bittman

Always read with a pen in your hands, not beside you on the table, but actually in your hand, ready, armed ... Put a question mark by everything you find suspect. Underline anything you really appreciate. Feel free to write 'splendid,' but also, 'I don't believe a word of it.' And even 'bullshit.' — Tim Parks

And what about the question which looms up continually within Christian discussion, about how human behavior as a whole relates to the overwhelming grace of God? This is the point at which the story of the rich young man, and the other scenes in Mark 10, seem to be saying, No: what matters isn't simply keeping a bunch of rules; what matters is character. Not just any old sort of character, either, but a particular sort: the sort Jesus was urging and modeling - the character of patience, humility, and above all generous, self-giving love. And the message of Mark at this point seems to be that you don't get that character just by trying. You get it by following Jesus. — N. T. Wright

You force people to stop asking questions, and before you know it they have auctioned off the question mark, or sold it for scrap. No boldness. No good ideas for fixing what's broken in the land. Because if you happen to mention it's broken, you are automatically disqualified. — Barbara Kingsolver

Man is a question mark ... and it is a blessing - celebrate it. It is a blessing because only man is a question mark; no dog is, no tree is. The rose bush is beautiful but not as beautiful as man, and the moon is beautiful but not as beautiful as man - because they are unconscious. Only man is consciously on a quest. And how can you be on a quest if you don't have a question mark in your being? — Osho

Losing It
Some days I think
I'm losing my mind.
What seems so
clear
most of the time
becomes a big question mark.
Am I really
the way
I percieve myself, or
is the person others see
the truth of me? I wait
for
answers, but inside
I know I have to go out
and find them. And
answers
like knowledge, are
not always where we
first look for them. — Ellen Hopkins

Dig deep enough into anyone and you'll find a scared little boy or scared little girl trying to get out. It's just a question of how deep you have to scratch to find them - that and the question of what it really is that scares the child. "Shit. — Mark Lawrence

Punctuationally speaking, wonder is a period at the end of a statement we've long taken for granted, suddenly looking up and seeing the sinuous curve of a tall black hat on its head, and realizing it was a question mark all along. — David James Duncan

This cell belongs to a brain, and it is my brain, the brain of me who is writing; and the cell in question, and within it the atom in question, is in charge of my writing, in a gigantic minuscule game which nobody has yet described. It is that which at this instant, issuing out of a labyrinthine tangle of yeses and nos, makes my hand run along a certain path on the paper, mark it with these volutes that are signs: a double snap, up and down, between two levels of energy, guides this hand of mine to impress on the paper this dot, here, this one. — Primo Levi

That is a simple rule, and easy to remember. When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane; not in all things, but in religious matters. — Mark Twain

A question once asked of a pastor haunts through the rows of headstones and I hear it sure again. What was the pastor's most profound regret in life?...
'Being in a hurry. Getting into the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing....Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away.' (Mark Buchanan) — Ann Voskamp

A young child is, indeed, a true scientist, just one big question mark. What? Why? How? I never cease to marvel at the recurring miracle of growth, to be fascinated by the mystery and wonder of this brave enthusiasm. — Victoria Wagner

Now, about Markham V. Reynolds (Junior). Your questions regarding that gentleman are very delicate, very subtle, very much like being smacked in the head with a mallet. Am I in love with him? What kind of a question is that? It's a tuba among the flutes, and I expect better of you. The first rule of snooping is to come at it sideways - when you began writing me dizzy letters about Alexander, I didn't ask if you were in love with him, I asked what his favorite animal was. And your answer told me everything I needed to know about him - how many men would admit that they loved ducks? (This brings up an important point: I don't know what Mark's favorite animal is. I doubt it's a duck.) — Mary Ann Shaffer

What makes a terrorist? Are the drivers primarily political or economic? Princeton economist Alan Krueger has made a great study of this question ... What Makes a Terrorist lacks a question mark. That's because Krueger, marshaling persuasive statistics and analysis, comes down firmly on the side of politics, noting most terrorists are middle-class and well-educated. — Thomas P.M. Barnett

Ask questions, no, screech questions out loud - while kneeling in front of the electric doors at Safeway, demanding other citizens ask questions along with you - while chewing up old textbooks and spitting the words onto downtown sidewalks - outside the Planet Hollywood, outside the stock exchange, and outside the Gap. Grind questions onto the glass on photocopiers. Scrape challenges onto old auto parts and throw them off bridges so that future people digging in the mud will question the world, too. Carve eyeballs into tire treads and onto shoe leathers so that your every trail speaks of thinking and questioning and awareness. Design molecules that crystallize into question marks. Make bar codes print out fables, not prices. You can't even throw away a piece of litter unless it has a question mark stamped on it - a demand for people to reach a finer place — Douglas Coupland

Probably my English teacher because she got me into writing instead of just answering the question. I used to hand in homework with 20 pages of nonsense and she'd still mark it. She was a really amazing teacher. — Robert Pattinson

There's no question that there's been a breach in the trust between urban - especially urban community, African-American and minority communities and the police in major American cities. — Mark Shields

Ian once suggested that in addition to the mystery stickers and the sci-fi and animal ones, there should be special stickers for books with happy endings, books with sad endings, books that will trick you into reading the next in the series. 'There should be ones with big teardrops,' he said, 'like for the side of Where the Red Fern Grows. Because otherwise it isn't fair. Like maybe you're accidentally reading it in public, and then everyone will make fun of you for crying.' But what could I affix to the marvelous and perplexing tale of Ian Drake? A little blue sticker with a question mark, maybe. Crossed fingers. A penny in a fountain. — Rebecca Makkai

sidewalk, passed out next to his friend. "Who are these guys?" her oversized companion asked. Abigail held up the arm of one of the men and showed it to Elliott. On the back of his hand was an image of two winged dragons on either side of a fleur-de-lis. "Does that answer your question?" she asked. Elliott said nothing but instinctively reached up and touched the tattoo on his large neckTogether, Abigail and Elliott, dragged the unconscious men away from the store and down a narrow side walkway. Inside the store, Uncle Al settled his transaction with the clerk, folded up the now empty blanket and placed it back in his satchel. He tucked the satchel under his arm and stepped out the door, carefully looking up and down the street before heading on his way. Back in the confines of the narrow walkway, — Mark Wullert

The question I ask myself is: have I really just become a squeamish middle-aged man, or has something happened to the horror genre that shows a growing appetite for watching torture, or at least a desire to explore it on film? And if so, why would that be? I can't pretend I know. I just know I don't like it. — Mark Gatiss

Running is a big question mark that's there each and every day. It asks you, 'Are you going to be a wimp or are you going to be strong today? — Peter Maher

We are all of us born, live and die in the shadow of a giant question mark that refers to three questions: Where do we come from? Why? And where, oh where, are we going! — Tennessee Williams

We scientists can argue forever about important topics like slightly different flavors of vanilla ice cream. Consider the silliness of this debate: one group of scientists found a 90% decline of big fish and criticized fishery management. Some other scientists found an 80% decline and started a big argument with the 90% people. Who cares if it's 80% or 90%? The real question is whether it's OK to let fishermen take most of the big fish out of our oceans. — Mark Powell

I never had a book get angry or yell at me, never had a book show disappointment in me or consider me stupid because I didn't understand a line or needed to reread a paragraph or didn't know a word, never had a book mock me, never had a book turn its back on me or slap me in the face or fire me from reading it or decide it was in love with a faster, more intelligent, handsomer reader, I never even had a book get bored with me, or question my logic, I never had a book look suddenly crestfallen because I shut it and left it on its own, I've never met a book too shy to come into the bathroom with me or under the covers, I never met a book that refused to read me to sleep. — Mark Frutkin

There's no question that Stalin broke the agreements made at Yalta completely about elections that were supposed to be held immediately in Poland, and Eastern Europe was plunged into slavery as a consequence. — Mark Shields

As she looked, the smoke puffing out of the chimney stopped curling upward and began to take on the shape of a wavering black question mark.
Sebastian laughed. "I think that means, Who's there?"
Clary pulled her coat closer around her. "It looks like something out of a fairy tale."
"Are you cold?" Sebastian put his arm around her. Immediately the smoke curling from the chimney stopped forming itself into question marks and began puffing out in the shape of lopsided hearts. — Cassandra Clare

Question everything, even the question mark, that shepherd's crook floating in the air above that small round rock

If you - stubbornly - still wish to be unhappy,
maybe you can grasp it. — Dick Allen

Everybody enjoys what feels good. Everyone wants to live a carefree, happy, and easy life, to fall in love and have amazing sex and relationships, to look perfect and make money and be popular and well-respected and admired and a total baller to the point that people part like the Red Sea when they walk into the room. Everybody wants that. It's easy to want that. A more interesting question, a question that most people never consider, is, "What pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for?" Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out. For — Mark Manson

I do not believe that there was ever a question of being abstract or representational. It is really a matter of ending this silence and solitude, of breathing, and stretching one's arms again transcendental experiences became possible. — Mark Rothko

I'd never met anyone with Emma's brash confidence. Everything about her exuded it: the way she carried herself, with shoulders thrown back; the hard set of her teeth when she made up her mind about something; the way she ended every sentence with a declarative period, never a question mark. It was infectious and I loved it, and I had to fight the sudden urge to kiss her, right here in front of everyone. — Ransom Riggs

And eventually there is no one left in the world except people who don't look at other people's faces and who don't know what these pictures mean and these people are all special people like me. And they like being on their own and I hardly ever see them because they are like okapi in the jungle in the Congo, which are a kind of antelope and very shy and rare. And I can go anywhere in the world and I know that no one is going to talk to me or touch me or ask me a question. But if I don't want to go anywhere I don't have to, and I can stay at home and eat broccoli and oranges and licorice laces all the time, or I can play computer games for a whole week, or I can just sit in the corner of the room and rub £1 coin back and forward over the ripple shapes on the surface of the radiator. And I wouldn't have to go to France. — Mark Haddon

Why does man freeze to death trying to reach the North Pole? Why does man drive himself to suffer the steam and heat of the Amazon? Why does he stagger his mind with the mathematics of the sky? Once the question mark has arisen in the human brain the answer must be found, if it takes a hundred years. A thousand years. — Walter Reisch

Everyone assumed that Norma and Ed would marry first, but Big Ed - displaying a tendency to hesitate at crucial personal moments that never showed up on the football field - neglected to pop the question before embarking for Fort Dix. Norma hadn't yet released that reticence was as much a piece of Big Ed as his inability to articulate his reasons for it. Sweet natured Norma, who had stuttered as a child and suffered from low self esteem, simply assumed she wasn't good enough. — Mark Frost

...the question of portion size. When I ate Doritos or a Big Mac, I dept on eating and eating, and later experienced McRegret. So why when I ate a fourteen-week-old barred rock [heirloom breed chicken] or a grapefruit did I find it tremendously delicious and yet tremendously satisfying? If these foods tasted better, shouldn't I have just kept on gorging?

Fred Provenza believes the difference comes down to what he calls "deep satiety." "Fundamentally," he told me, "eating too much is an inability to satiate." Wen food meets needs at "multiple levels," it provides a feeling of "completeness" and offers a satisfaction that's altogether different from being stuffed. — Mark Schatzker

Marilyn Manson has always been intended to confuse some, anger some and make some people feel at home. There's no way to misunderstand what I do - but everyone can understand it differently. That's the only way I've learned to embrace art - it has to be a question mark, not an answer. — Marilyn Manson

"What is normal?" really becomes the question. What is normal, and how are we fooled into thinking it's something other than what we're doing at any given time. Every family has either a drug addict or an alcoholic or some sort of dysfunction that the family is dealing with. And I think the grace of this family is that they actually could be that far out there but also be forgiving, and be really human, and be human in front of each other without much shame. — Mark Ruffalo

After the 9/11 incidents, Islam has become a big question mark among westerners, especially Americans. The mass media constantly raise the issue of relationship between Islam and terrorism. — Abdolkarim Soroush

At the heart of each spiritual tradition is the question of how to be in the world without losing what matters, and whether living an awakened life is of any use if we don't bring what matters to bear on the world. — Mark Nepo

Question: How much do you have to invest in the future before you've spent it and no longer have one? — Mark Steyn

To fit in with the change of events, words, too, had to change their usual meanings. What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action. Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man, and to plot against an enemy behind his back was perfectly legitimate self-defence. Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect. — Thucydides

Though we were all taught to be proud of living in this great parliamentary democracy the civil servants who ran it were a fearsome bunch - a nameless mass of people with jobs (police, social workers, record-keepers, teachers, councilmen) whose sole purpose was to keep everyone shuffling from birth to death in a nice orderly queue. Surely some social-service record had been passed to the local constabulary bearing a huge black question mark beside the name Finn and the scrawled words, Why isn't this boy in school — Meg Rosoff

In other nightmares, in his everyday reality, Victor watched his father take a drink of vodka on a completely empty stomach. Victor could hear that near-poison fall, then hit, flesh and blood, nerve and vein. Maybe it was like lightning tearing an old tree into halves. Maybe it was like a wall of water, a reservation tsunami, crashing onto a small beach. Maybe it was like Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Maybe it was like all that. Maybe. But after he drank, Victor's father would breathe in deep and close his eyes, stretch, and straighten his neck and back. During those long drinks, Victor's father wasn't shaped like a question mark. He looked more like an exclamation point. — Sherman Alexie

Knowing European manhood's boundaries to be porous and needing reinforcement, and meeting Indigenous possibilities that threw such boundaries into question, early conquerors invoked berdache as if assigning a failure to differentiate sex to Indigenous people, but they did so to define sexual normativity for them all. Thus, if colonial observers invoked berdache to mark Indigenous difference, the aim was to teach both colonial and Indigenous subjects the relational terms of colonial heteropatriarchy. — Scott L. Morgensen

Even Mom doesn't understand how being in front of a camera all the time twists and warps you. How one second it makes you feel unbelievably alive and the next publicly strips you down until all that's left is one big question mark. — Heather Demetrios

All the first years, their only question had been
asked with beseechings and tears that might have moved stone, in time, perhaps, but hearts are not stones: "Is he alive?" "Is she alive? — Mark Twain

Now a witness was called who testified that he found Muff Potter washing in the brook, at an early hour of the morning that the murder was discovered, and that he immediately sneaked away. After some further questioning, counsel for the prosecution said: "Take the witness." The prisoner raised his eyes for a moment, but dropped them again when his own counsel said: "I have no questions to ask him." The next witness proved the finding of the knife near the corpse. Counsel for the prosecution said: "Take the witness." "I have no questions to ask him," Potter's lawyer replied. A third witness swore he had often seen the knife in Potter's possession. "Take the witness." Counsel for Potter declined to question him. The faces of the audience began to betray annoyance. Did this attorney mean to throw away his client's life without an effort? — Mark Twain

We only live once, but once is enough if we do it right. Live your life with class, dignity, and style so that an exclamation, rather than a question mark signifies it! — Gary Ryan Blair

The knowledgeable person lives with a question mark '?' and the man of awe and wonder lives with an exclamation mark. — Rajneesh

The future arches above us all like a giant question mark, looming or embracing by whims and turns. — Gail Godwin

Whereas orthodox Christianity answers Jesus' question to Peter - "Who do you say I am?" (Mark 8:29) - by affirming that Christ was both God (the Creator of the universe, the Lord of Israel) and human (an average Joe, yet without sin), these heretical thinkers answered the question differently. — Justin S. Holcomb

As they rolled over the marshes before Venice, he fell back in his seat, windburnt and exhausted, and noticed that the bottle of water, but for its slight and elegant blue tint, was the smoothest, clearest, and most transparent thing he had ever seen. All that was reflected in it was sharp, subdued, and calm. The fields outside, beyond the reeds; the reeds themselves, waving green and yellow; the water, shockingly blue in north light, were clarified, compressed, and preserved within the lens. And if bottles of mineral water could pacify the light of mountains, fields, and the sea, to what painful mysteries would the lens of beauty be opaque? Even death, Alessandro thought, would yield to beauty - if not in fact then in explanation - for the likeness of every great question could be found in forms as simple as songs, and there, if not explicable, they were at least perfectly apprehensible. — Mark Helprin

The facts are in, the science is beyond question. Sugar in all its forms is the root cause of our obesity epidemic and most of the chronic disease sucking the life out of our citizens and our economy - and, increasingly, the rest of the world. You name it, it's caused by sugar: heart disease, cancer, dementia, type 2 diabetes, depression, and even acne, infertility and impotence. — Mark Hyman, M.D.

EDUCATION TEACHES US HOW TO THINK, INTELLIGENCE HOW TO QUESTION, AND OUR MORALITY WHAT TO DO WITH WHAT WE KNOW. BE WARY THEN OF THE EDUCATED, INTELLIGENT, AND AMORAL PERSON, FOR THEY WILL KNOW ONLY THAT THEY CAN DO A THING, NOT WHETHER THEY SHOULD. — Mark T. Barnes

As became a young sinner, Sam [Mark Twain] had a special interest in Satan. He asked his Sunday school teacher questions about Eve in the garden, wondering "if he had ever heard of another woman who, being approached by a serpent, would not excuse herself and break for the nearest timber." Twain recalled, "He did not answer my question, but rebuked me for inquiring into matters above my age and comprehension. — Fred Kaplan

When she comes down to supper I don't like her any better; in fact, a hell of a lot less. She's put on a shiny dress, all fishscales, like this was still India or the boat. On her head she's put a sort of beaded cap that fits close-like a hood. A mottled green-and-black thing that gleams dully in the candlelight. Not a hair shows below it, you can't tell whether she's a woman or what the devil she is. Right in front, above her forehead, there's a sort of question-mark worked into it, in darker beads. You can't be sure what it is, but it's shaped like a question mark. ("Kiss of the Cobra") — Cornell Woolrich

By reading keep in a state of excited igorance, like a blind man in a house afire; flounder around, immensely but unintelligently interested; don't know how I got in and can't find the way out, but I'm having a booming time all to myself.Don't know what a Schelgesetzentwurf is, but I keep as excited over it and as worried about it as if it were my own child. I simply live on the Sch.; it is my daily bread. I wouldn't have the question settled for anything in the world. — Mark Twain

If Atheism writes upon the blackboard of the Universe a question mark, it writes it for the purpose of stating that there is a question yet to be answered. Is it not better to place a question mark upon a problem while seeking an answer than to put the label "God" there and consider the matter solved? Does not the word "God" only confuse and make more difficult the solution by assuming a conclusion that is utterly groundless and palpably absurd? — Joseph Lewis

Romeo and Juliet"

The world is full of girls! Of all different kinds and shapes and sizes. They're all big question marks, incognito and unknown. They're a page in a book that's never been written or perhaps yet read. They're a title that's never been chosen, a language that's never been understood. Yet perhaps a treasure that hasn't been discovered.

Will any of this ever be revealed? That is even a bigger question mark. Yet, adventurous men, the brave and the naive ones, still pursue their endeavor toward their unknown dreams.

Will there ever be another Romeo and Juliet?
Or are we all Romeos and Juliets at the end? — Mauro Lannini

And those of us who trust ourselves the least,
Who doubt and question most, these, it may be,
Will make their mark upon eternity,
And youth will turn to them as to a feast.
The time may come when a man who confessed
His self-doubts will be ranked among the blessed
Who never suffered anguish or knew fear,
Whose times were times of glory and good cheer,
Who lived like children, simple happy lives.
For in us too is part of that Eternal Mind
Which through the aeons calls to brothers of its kind:
Both you and I will pass, but it survives. — Hermann Hesse

I don't expect that the scientific community now embraces and kisses me 'Oh wonderful, great you did!' we have to live with critics, this is normal. Chariots of the Gods was full of speculation, I had 238 question marks. Nobody read the question mark. They always said: Mr. Von Daniken is saying ... I did not say, I asked the questions, would that be a posibility? In Chariots of the Gods, I made clear difference between a speculations and facts. — Erich Von Daniken

Obviously we know Bill Hader is funny and charming, but my question is, can he do raw humanity and naturalism? I think so. — Mark Duplass

Things can make sense at the time, but as you get older those consolations no longer help you sleep. It's the only thing I've learned. We all think we know the answer, and we're all wrong. Shit, I'm not sure we even know what the question is. — Mark Mills

A thousand times today I've started to open my mouth, started to squeak out, Can you tell me ... ? But then I'd look into the front seat, at my mother's silent shaking, my father's grim profile, the mournful bags under his eyes, and all the questions I might ask seemed abusive. Assault and battery, a question mark used like a club. My parents are old and fragile. I'd have to heartless to want to hurt them. — Margaret Peterson Haddix