There’s really no point in asking what if? The only question worth asking is: what’s next?

While the question “I wonder if?” is a question worth asking on its own, it is also closely connected to the question “I wonder why?” Once you start asking “I wonder why?” and especially if you get an unsatisfying answer, you are inevitably going to ask “I wonder if things could be different?” Put another way, to ask “I wonder why?” about the present naturally raises the question “I wonder if?” about the future.

Just as asking “I wonder why?” will keep you curious about the world, asking “I wonder if?” will keep you engaged in the world. Nearly every adventure I have been on, and nearly every new thing I have tried, began with the question: “I wonder if I could do that?” The answers have not been uniform.

When things get too complicated, it sometimes makes sense to stop and wonder: Have I asked the right question?

Which leads me to the second essential question: “I wonder . . . ?” Before you object, I recognize that this is, technically, not a complete question. It is instead the first half of a series of questions. “I wonder” can be paired, at the very least, with both “why” and “if.” This chapter is about these two variations on a single theme, namely the questions “I wonder why?” and “I wonder if?” Asking “I wonder why?” allows you to remain curious about the world, which would have come in handy on my run in the Netherlands. Asking “I wonder if?” allows you to remain engaged with the world and is a way to prompt yourself to try something new.

They raise the question of whether I’ve been crazy, and am suddenly sane, or whether I’ve been sane up to now, and have suddenly gone crazy.

"Two questions form the foundation of all novels: "What if?" and "What next?" (A third question, "What now?", is one the author asks himself every 10 minutes or so; but it's more a cry than a question.) Every novel begins with the speculative question, What if "X" happened? That's how you start."

"What is bad? What is good? What should one love, what hate? Why live, and what am I? What is lie,what is death? What power rules over everything?" he asked himself. And there was no answer to any of these questions except one, which was not logical and was not at all an answer to these questions. This answer was: "You will die — and everything will end. You will die and learn everything — or stop asking."

until the end of the world,all whys will be answered,but now,you can only ask!

The questions we ask are "What?" and "How?" What are the facts and how are they related? If sometimes, in a moment of absent-mindedness or idle diversion, we ask the question "Why?" the answer escapes us.

In sum, the question “I wonder why?” is essential because it is at the heart of curiosity, and asking this question is the way to remain interested in the world around you, including your place in it.

The only questions that really matter are the ones you ask yourself.

Ask ‘what if?’ Quantify ‘what if?’ . . .

Why I came here, I know not; where I shall go it is useless to inquire - in the midst of myriads of the living and the dead worlds, stars, systems, infinity, why should I be anxious about an atom?