Rhetorical Question Quotes

A rhetorical question. It has a question mark at the end, but you are not meant to answer it because the person who is asking it already knows the answer. ~ Mark Haddon

Not all of Derrida's writing is to everyone's taste. He had an irritating habit of overusing the rhetorical question, which lends itself easily to parody: 'What is it, to speak? How can I even speak of this? Who is this "I" who speaks of speaking? ~ Terry Eagleton

If I were a poet, that's what I'd write about. People who worked in the middle of the night. Men who loaded trains, emergency room nurses with their gentle hands. Night clerks in hotels, cabdrivers on graveyard, waitresses in all-night coffee shops. They knew the world, how precious it was when a person remembered your name, the comfort of a rhetorical question, "How's it going, how's the kids?" They knew how long the night was. They knew the sound life made as it left. It rattled, like a slamming screen door in the wind. Night workers lived without illusions, they wiped dreams off counters, they loaded freight. They headed back to the airport for one last fare. ~ Janet Fitch

Has the casual use of profanity in English reached a high tide? That's a rhetorical question, but I'm going to answer it anyway: Fuck yeah. ~ Mary Norris

Where's Parrish?" asked Engle.
"He's right there," Gansey replied.
"Don't know how I missed the wind off the glacier," Engle said. "What's up, man?"
It was a rhetorical question, answerable by a lightly painted smile. The boys were here for Gansey. Where's Parrish? In a place too far away to hike to in a day. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Can I ask you a personal question? Of all the rhetorical questions
in the world, that is the one which irritates me most with its
simultaneous gesture towards and denial of the trespass that is about
to follow. ~ Kamila Shamsie

There's something I want to show you. Do you think anyone would notice if we slipped away for a bit?" He raised an eyebrow at her. "Given that we make up a full quarter of the guest list, I would be a little insulted if they didn't notice." "It was a rhetorical question. ~ Marissa Meyer

Why do you talk all the time?" I asked. It was a rhetorical question, but she cocked her head on one side and considered it carefully.
"I think it's 'cause I don't know any big words, like you and Mummy," she said, just in time to pull me out of my magazine again, "so I have to use lots and lots of little ones. ~ Theodore Sturgeon

What have the Romans ever done for us? ~ John Cleese

In a section of The Vaccine Book titled "Is it your social responsibility to vaccinate your kids?" Dr. Bob asks, "Can we fault parents for putting their own child's health ahead of that of the kids around him?" This is meant to be a rhetorical question, but Dr. Bob's implied answer is not mine. In another section of the book, Dr. Bob writes of his advice to parents who fear the MMR vaccine, "I also warn them not to share their fears with their neighbors, because if too many people avoid the MMR, we'll likely see the disease increase significantly." I do not need to consult an ethicist to determine that there is something wrong there, but my sister clarifies my discomfort. "The problem is in making a special exemption just for yourself," she says. This reminds her of a way of thinking proposed by the philosopher John Rawls: Imagine that you do not know what position you are going to hold in society - rich, poor, educated, insured, no access to health care, infant, adult, HIV positive, healthy immune system, etc. - but that you are aware of the full range of possibilities. What you would want in that situation is a policy that is going to be equally just no matter what position you end up in. "Consider relationships of dependence," my sister suggests. "You don't own your body - that's not what we are, our bodies aren't independent. The health of our bodies always depends on choices other people are making." She falters for a moment here, and is at a loss for words, which is rar ~ Eula Biss

O love-why can't you leave me alone? Which is a rhetorical question meaning: for heaven's sake, don't. ~ Thomas Merton

Are you falling asleep before midnight?" Cassie leaned over the edge of the couch to look at Jack. He was stretched out on the floor, his head resting against a pillow near the center of the couch, his eyes closed. She was now wide awake and headache free. He wasn't in so good a shape. "The new year is eighteen minutes away."
"Come kiss me awake in seventeen minutes."
She blinked at that lazy suggestion, gave a quick grin, and dropped Benji on his chest.
He opened one eye to look up at her as he settled his hand lightly on the kitten. "That's a no?"
She smiled. She was looking forward to dating him, but she was smart enough to know he'd value more what he had to work at.
He sighed. "That was a no. How much longer am I going to be on the fence with you?"
"Is that a rhetorical question or do you want an answer?" If this was the right relationship God had for her future, time taken now would improve it, not hurt it. She was ready to admit she was tired of being alone.
He scratched Benji under the chin and the kitten curled up on his chest and batted a paw at his hand. "Rhetorical. I'd hate to get my hopes up."
She leaned her chin against her hand, looking down at him. "I like you, Jack."
"You just figured that out?"
"I'll like you more when you catch my mouse."
"The only way we are going to catch T.J. is to turn this place into a cheese factory and help her get so fat and slow that she can no longer run and hide."
Or y ~ Dee Henderson

Why in the world did the most Pentagon-wanted girl out of all of us," he looked pointedly at me, "go to the place where most members of the Pentagon are located?"
I shrugged.
"It's not a rhetorical question, Ms. Embers," he said dryly.
"We got this," I said, holding up the Didot.
His gaze softened slightly. "Well. That's good. But that's still no excuse for not telling me where you were going! ~ Embee

Redd's face contorted with a sudden realization. "How could I have been so stupid?"
The Cat was trying to decide if this was a rhetorical question when she roared, "It's a construct!"
With a dismiissive swing of Redd's arm, Alyss and her army began to shimmer, the billon points of engery that formed them monentarily visible before exploding apart into nothing. Redd scoped the queendom with her imagination's eye. "Where are you, Alyss? Where is my dear little niece? ~ Frank Beddor

Ut mos totus rhetoricus problemati terminus?
(When will all the rhetorical questions end?) ~ Mike Thomas

Dad, I'll never do any better. He's smart and funny and good-looking.."
Stephanie," he took both my hands, "how could you do any worse?"
Best rhetorical question ever. ~ Stephanie Klein

HAVE YOU EVER REALLY EMBARRASSED YOURSELF? Don't answer that, stupid. It's a rhetorical question. Of course you've embarrassed yourself. Everybody has. I bet the pope has. If you were to say to the pope: "Your Holy Worshipfulness, I bet you've pulled some blockheaded boners in your day, huh?" he'd smile that warm, knowing, fatherly smile he has, and then he'd wave. He can't hear a word you're saying, up on that balcony. ~ Dave Barry

Cinder took Kai's hand and squeezed it. "There's something I want to show you. Do you think anyone would notice if we slipped away for a bit?"
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Given that we make up a full quarter of the guest list, I would be a little insulted if they didn't notice."
"It was a rhetorical question."
"Then by all means, lead the way. ~ Marissa Meyer

Why are you here?" he asked, staring around me at Mr. Kent.
Mr. Kent laughed uncomfortably. "Why does anyone go to a gambling house?"
"To gamble," Sebastian answered.
"To find information for our plan," I muttered, Mr. Kent's power inadvertently affecting me as well.
"What plan?" Sebastian asked.
I glared at Mr. Kent. "Nothing, nothing at all."
"No one seems to understand what a rhetorical question is these days," Mr. Kent said to the skies. ~ Tarun Shanker

Art has always been this
pure interrogation, rhetorical question less the rhetoric
whatever else it may have been obliged by social reality to appear. ~ Samuel Beckett

It was an allegorical, metaphorical, rhetorical question. ~ Billy Phillips

Here, Courtney, is your contribution to the anthology of my life.
Did you like that? The anthology of my life?
I just made it up. ~ Jay Asher

I've been around so long, I can remember when it was a rhetorical question to ask, "Is the pope Catholic?" Now it's a legit question. ~ Rush Limbaugh

I said, have you seen your butt?"
"Is that a rhetorical question?" I craned my neck to take a gander at my backside.
Chloe clarified, "She means you have 'boy toy' written across the back of your jeans."
"Oh." I nodded. "They're Josh's."
"You say that as if it explains everything." She cocked her head to one side and considered me while buttoning her cardigan. "My stepbrothers dont write 'boy toy' across the back of their jeans.They only say the entire alphabet while burping."
"That's nothing.Josh can recite the Gettysburg Address. ~ Jennifer Echols

If practice makes perfect, and no one's perfect, then why practice? ~ Billy Corgan

That was a rhetorical question,' Reyna added. 'I do not need a response.'
'I know what rhetorical means.' I made a mental note to double-check the word's definition with Socrates the next time I was in Greece. Then I remembered Socrates was dead. ~ Rick Riordan

And suddenly they came out of the woodwork. I don't actually know what that expression means. What come out of the wood work? Cockroaches maybe. Mice? Are these rhetorical questions, like I just learned about on one of my rare visits to school? Was that a rhetorical question? Is it a paradox when you ask rhetorically if a rhetorical question is a rhetorical question? I think I'd better stop before I get a headache. ~ John Marsden

Oh God, I'm fucked. So, so fucked. This isn't flying, this is the art of dying, and the one person who got me into this mess is gone.

I guess I now have my answer to that stupid "rhetorical" question: if a friend asked you to jump, would you?

Apparently, twat-waffle that I am, I would. ~ Laura Thalassa

And the truth is that then I felt a shiver and I looked at the one who was awake, who was still studying the only poem in the world by Cesárea Tinajero, and I said to him: I think something's wrong with your friend. And the one who was reading raised his eyes and looked at me as if I were behind a window or he were on the other side of a window, and said: relax, nothing's wrong. Goddamn psychotic boys! As if speaking in one's sleep were nothing! As if making promises in one's sleep were nothing! And then I looked at the walls of my front room, my books, my photographs, the stains on the ceiling, and then I looked at them and I saw them as if through a window, one of them with his eyes open and the other with his eyes shut, but both of them looking, looking out? looking in? I don't know, all I know is that their faces had turned pale, as if they were at the North Pole, and I told them so, and the one who was sleeping breathed noisily and said: it's more as if the North Pole had descended on Mexico City, Amadeo, that's what he said, and I asked: boys, are you cold? a rhetorical question, or a practical question, because if the answer was yes, I was determined to make them coffee right away, but ultimately it was really a rhetorical question, if they were cold all they had to do was move away from the window, and then I said: boys, is it worth it? is it worth it? is it really worth it? and the one who was asleep said Simonel. ~ Roberto Bolano

Without ending sorrow there is no love. Sorrow is part of your self-interest, part of your egotistic, self-centred activity. You cry for another, for your son, for your brother, for your mother. Why? Because you have lost something that you are attached to, something which gave you companionship, comfort, and all the rest of it. With the ending of that person, you realize how utterly empty, how lonely your life is. Then you cry. And there are many, many people ready to comfort you, and you slip very easily into that network, that trap, of comfort.

There is the comfort in God, which is an image put together by thought, or comfort in some illusory concept or idea. And that's all you want. But you never question the very urge, the desire for comfort, never ask whether there is any comfort at all. One needs to have a comfortable bed or chair - that's all right. But you never ask whether there is any comfort at all psychologically, inwardly. Is it an illusion which has become your truth? You understand? An illusion can become your truth - the illusion that you are God, that there is God. That God has been created by thought, by fear. If you had no fear, there would be no God.

So this is a very complex problem of our life - why we are so shallow, empty, filled with other people's knowledge and with books; why we are not independent, free human beings to find out; why we are slaves. This is not a rhetorical question; it is a question each one of us must as ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Is this cock big enough for ya?" I looked at it. It was certainly medium-sized, and not skinny. I wasn't sure if it had been a rhetorical question, like when people say "hot enough for ya?" or if he expected a thought-out response. I was momentarily confused, looking at his wielded appendage. "Yes," I replied, with certainty. It was big enough for me. ~ Kelley Kenney

Yes," Lisa said with the usual blank honestly. She frowned. "Was that a sincere question? Or a scolding rhetorical question akin to Harilotecca's speech patterns? ~ Ash Gray

Well," he asked, "whaddya expect?"
It was so obviously a rhetorical question that of course I answered it. My truth impulse seemed stronger around this boy,my impulse control way under par.
"I would expect you to be dancing."
His expression was unreadable in the limited light. "Is that an invitation?"
"No. An observation."
He shrugged. "Okay. I needed a break. It was either keep an eye on Chase while he pukes up a fifth of cheap rum in the guys' bathroom or follow the girls into the ladies' room."
I almost smiled and told him about Willing's bathrooms and me. Instead, some truly horrific and irresistible impulse had me announcing, "Amanda looks really pretty tonight."
"So do you."
Bizarrely, I felt my breath catch in my chest, and for a long, awful second, I thought I might cry. I gripped the top of my pad tightly, concentrated on the spiral metal binding where it dug into my skin.
"It's a cool costume," he said. "Water nymph?"
"Sea goddess," I answered quietly. "Roman."
"Hmm." Alex was staring out toward the garden now,looking so at ease that I went from pretzel to knot. Could it really be that easy for him? To say things like he did without thinking? Without meaning them at all? "Too many mermaids tonight. Not that I have anything against mermaids.Mermaids are hot. I mean,you saw my drawing."
I nodded.
"You know," he went on, "that day in the hall,you compared my stuff to two Japanese artists-"
I nodded a ~ Melissa Jensen

We will need to move fast. Are you up for that?"
She snorted, and when Aeduan glanced back, he found her face had softened. The slightest - almost imperceptible - glint of mischief hovered there now.
"I think we both know the answer to that, Bloodwitch." She stalked past him, her chin high. Challenging. "The question will be if you can keep up."
Then she broke into a run, Aeduan broke into a run after her. ~ Susan Dennard

If a woman goes out with different men on different days, women only will question her character and call her all sort of names. ~ Esha Gupta

The question is just as important as the answer. ~ Charlie Rose

In my case I don't mind playing a character that irritates people or makes people question my sanity. ~ Billy Corgan

For me, an aerial picture is no different than a close-up portrait. It's a question of framing and angle. Helicopters are great for that. But I've also used planes. Of course, I always have a harness. ~ Yann Arthus-Bertrand

You didn't answer my question. I asked you about being in love. You said what it was like when your wife went away."
Martin sat down again. How young she is. When we were that young we invented the world, no one could tell us a thing. Julia stood with her hands clenched, as though she wanted to pound an answer out of him. "Being in love is ... anxious," he said. "Wanting to please, worrying that she will see me as I really am. But wanting to be known. That is ... you're naked, moaning in the dark, no dignity at all ... I wanted her to see me and to love me even though she knew everything I am, and I knew her. Now she's gone, and my knowledge is incomplete. So all day I imagine what she is doing, what she says and who she talks to, how she looks. I try to supply the missing hours, and it gets harder as they pile up, all the time she's been gone. I have to imagine. I don't know, really. I don't know any more. ~ Audrey Niffenegger

People often ask me when there's going to be a Mrs. Zach Braff. It's a confusing question sometimes because many people don't realize that my mother is named Mrs. Zach Braff. ~ Zach Braff

Are you alone?"
So that's what this call was about. For some reason, the question made my throat tighten. "No," I said, "Elvis is here. Would you like to talk to him? ~ Maggie Stiefvater

The question is precisely to know whether the past has ceased to exist, or ceased to be useful ... ~ Henri Bergson

How long have I been here, what a question, I've often wondered. And often I could answer, An hour, a month, a year, a century, depending on what I meant by here, and me, and being, and there I never went looking for extravagant meanings, there I never much varied, only the here would sometimes seem to vary. ~ Samuel Beckett

How forthright does the audience want the broadcasters to be? Because when you tell your truth, there's a lot of anger that comes out. I think it's a good question to ask TV people [executives] too. How much truth do they want to be told? How much truth does the league want told? Because the truth isn't just a positive truth. If you're going to tell the truth, you would be telling a lot of positive and some negative. ~ Jeff Van Gundy

The real question is whether we can learn anything from our experiences upon which we may grow and help others to grow in the likeness and image of God. We know that if we rebel against doing that which is reasonably possible for us, then we will be penalized. And we will be equally penalized if we presume in ourselves a perfection that simply is not there. Apparently, the course of relative humility and progress will have to lie somewhere between these extremes. In our slow progress away from rebellion, true perfection is doubtless several millennia away ~ Bill W.

The Lord God, the creator of Judaism and the God of Judaism and Christianity, empowered our minds and gave us the ability to question. ~ Michael Novak

If you put on a lousy production with white actors, it's lousy. There is a problem, or can be, at this stage of our social evolution, with mixing the casts. It may not be a question of race so much as class. You would rarely find a black man in a high executive position where he was swinging his weight around. ~ Howard Schultz

Isn't that the tie Lily bought for your birthday?"

Evan looked down to examine it. It was paisley, a kaleidoscope of color. "Yes it is, as a matter of fact. Good memory. What do you think? Too much?"

"It doesn't matter what I think."

"But you don't like it."

"I think that if you want to wear it, you should wear it."

Evan seemed momentarily undecided. "Why do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Refuse to answer a simple question."

"Because my opinion is irrelevant. You should wear what you want."

"Just tell me, okay?"

"I don't like your tie."

"Really? Why not?"

"Because it's ugly."

"It's not ugly."

Colin nodded. "Okay."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Probably."

"You don't even wear ties."

"You're right."

"So why do I care what you think?"

"I don't know."

Evan scowled. "Talking to you can be infuriating, you know."

"I know. You've said that before."

"Of course I've said it before! Because it's true! Didn't we just talk about this the other night? You don't have to say whatever pops into your head."

"But you asked."

"Just ... Oh, forget it." He turned and started back toward the house. "I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Where are you going?"

Evan walked a couple of steps before answeri ~ Nicholas Sparks

What gets me back to church, I think, is thinking maybe this time that question "Is it true?" will be answered, not just in terms of somebody saying, "Yes, it's true," but something will happen in a sermon or maybe shuffling up to the Eucharist, or in the old lady who's sitting beside me with a Bible - maybe something will happen which will show me that it's true. So I go back thinking, maybe this time I'll be lucky. ~ Frederick Buechner

We're constantly reminded that this precious life is what you make of it. But what if you're not sure of what you want to make it into?
On the one hand there are those resolute in their life's agenda and objectives, often set by the scriptural society they choose to adhere to, or one passed down from parents and family. They know what they want because they allow themselves to be told what is important, to be guided by those who have gone before. A proven formula maybe, or an unrealistic dream. Is true success in ones life fairly measured against someone else's achievements, should we use those achievements of others as our own check list? Surely we will find happiness just as they have, or not, at the end of it.
The opposite end of the spectrum sees the tragic dreamers, unable to answer the question of why they're even here, the absence of knowing what their true calling is drives them close to insanity, desperate to live a meaningful life but haunted by the inability to see what constitutes as such. Often turning to artistic release to try and express themselves, their own high standards against which they measure themselves tragically, often fatally high.
I find myself somewhere in the middle. I know what society expects but I don't agree with all of it. Much I have to adhere to simply to exist. Fortunately an education grants me a career not a job, that in the current world gives me choices that others do not and I am thankful. But I'm concious that the wel ~ Raven Lockwood

It's strange that in an age when we pride ourselves on our independence of thought we meekly submit without further question to the declaration of a clearly unbalanced nineteenth century philosopher that God is dead! That's cheeky, of course - and one rarely comes away from reading Nietzsche without learning something new and significant. He's certainly FAR more unsettling for faith than any contemporary atheist I know of. ~ George Pattison

The question is what will Mitt Romney do as president if his policy is simply to be hands off and let the government be made so small it can be drowned in a bathtub. In the 21st century global economy, no state alone has the ability to compete against China. ~ Jennifer Granholm

We know what you want to accomplish ... The real question is, 'what are you willing to push through the dip for?' What are you willing to stand up for, bleed for, commit to and generally be unreasonable about? Because that's what's going to actually get done. ~ Seth Godin

To test a man's ego, simply ask him a complicated question. A good person will never be afraid to admit they don't know the answer to something. And only when a man has fully dismantled his ego, can he begin to be truly good. ~ Suzy Kassem

In the age of information, ignorance is a choice. Question everything. Don't believe everything you hear. Come to your own conclusions. ~ Mark Patterson

I don't think there's any question that America is safer as a result of the bin Laden operation. ~ Leon Panetta

Inside each of us is a unique person resulting from millennia of environment and heredity combined in a way that could never happen again and could never have happened before. We aren't blank slates, but we are also communal creatures who are born before our brains are fully developed, so we're very sensitive to our environment. The question is: How to find the support and the circumstances that allow you to express what's inside you? ~ Gloria Steinem

Calm for too long begs the question of whether we're in an all-out pursuit of life, or we're all-out of the pursuit of life. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

(...) and a story meant money. (...) If you were young, you just set your teeth, and bit on and held on, till the money began to flow from the invisible; it was a question of power. It was a question of will; a subtle, subtle powerful emanation of will out of yourself brought back to you the mysterious nothingness of money: a word on a piece of paper. ~ D.H. Lawrence

Ideology knows the answer before the question has been asked.
Principles are something different: a set of values that have to be adapted to circumstances but not compromised away. ~ George Packer

I became a major league manager in several cities and was discharged. We call it discharged because there was no question I had to leave. ~ Casey Stengel

I am sometimes asked, "How do you know there won't be a war tomorrow (or a genocide, or an act of terrorism) that will refute your whole thesis?" The question misses the point of this book. The point is not that we have entered an Age of Aquarius in which every last earthling has been pacified forever. It is that substantial reductions in violence have taken place, and it is important to understand them. Declines in violence are caused by political, economic, and ideological conditions that take hold in particular cultures at particular times. If the conditions reverse, violence could go right back up. ~ Steven Pinker

Just ask yourself, if we weren't taught to be women, what would we be? (Ask yourself this question even if you're a man, and don't cheat by changing the words.) ~ Karen Joy Fowler

Nobody's life is entirely free of pain and sorrow. Isn't it a question of learning to live with them rather than trying to avoid them? ~ Eckhart Tolle