The chapter describes the minimalist nature of ancient punctuation, arguing that the absence of quotation marks in ancient texts is a more interesting phenomenon than usually thought. The chapter examines numerous cases where the absence of quotation marks makes it difficult for a reader to be initially sure where a speech begins or ends; it is argued that there is regularly a lot at stake for our interpretations in this uncertainty, since the reader must decide for themselves what the passage really means before deciding where the speeches begin and end.