Consider the case $n=2$. Thus we have
$$
q(\begin{bmatrix}
c_1 & c_2 \\
\end{bmatrix})
=
\begin{bmatrix}
c_1 & c_2 \\
\end{bmatrix}
\begin{bmatrix}
q_{11} & q_{12} \\
q_{21} & q_{22} \\
\end{bmatrix}
\begin{bmatrix}
c_1 \\
c_2 \\
\end{bmatrix}
= q_{11} c_1^2 + (q_{12} + q_{21}) c_1 c_2 + q_{22}c_2^2
$$
For every value of $c_2$, we can consider the polynomial in one variable $q_{c_2}(c_1) = q(\begin{bmatrix} c_1 & c_2 \\ \end{bmatrix})$. Since $\mathbb C$ is algebraically closed, this polynomial always has two roots. Thus we have a solution by letting $c_2 \neq 0$.
If $n > 2$, note that $q( \begin{bmatrix} c_1 & c_2 & 0 & \dots & 0 \end{bmatrix} )$ has a non-zero solution since it is a quadratic form in two variables.
If $V $ has infinite dimension, it suffices to take a $2$-dimensional subspace of $V$ and apply the case $n=2$.
Note that this result holds whatever is the matrix that represents $q$, i.e. in the finite dimension case, you could consider singular matrices as well.
Hope that helps,