Baffling Puzzle Quotes & Sayings

We're ready for the off, then. — Ian Rankin

Great men are great until they know it. Saints are holy until they know it. — Idries Shah

Why do Americans find government so baffling and irritating-even though many of us depend on public programs for a secure retirement, an affordable mortgage, or a college loan? In this timely and important book, political scientist Suzanne Mettler explains how the United States has come to rely on hidden, indirect policies that privilege special interests but puzzle regular citizens. American democracy can do better, and she shows how. Politicians and the public alike have much to learn from her brilliant and engaging analysis. — Theda Skocpol

A person who wills to have a good will, already has a good will
in its rudiments. There is solid satisfaction in knowing that the mere desire to get out of an old habit is a material advance upon the condition of submergence in that habit. The longest step toward cleanliness is made when one gains
nothing but dissatisfaction with dirt. — William Ernest Hocking

Usually if someone starts making universal claims, I tune right on out. — Greg Saunier

I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me -who knows how?
To thy chamber-window, Sweet!

The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream -
The champak odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine,
O beloved as thou art!

Oh lift me from the grass!
I die! I faint! I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast;
Oh press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last! — Percy Bysshe Shelley

I don't keep secrets because I'm no good at them! — Miley Cyrus

I don't dwell on success. Maybe that's one reason I'm successful. — Calvin Klein

I don't control the movies that are offered to me, but I make choices based on certain parameters. — Andy Garcia

I'm going to be the scariest grandma in the world. — Laini Taylor

especially given to dirtying the butter (a thing quite superfluous, according to Captain Burt's description of Highland butter). — Andrew Lang

They needed to grieve alone was what Tibby's dad said. Lena wondered if really there was any choice in that. Everyone grieved alone. — Ann Brashares

If you think about the class-size puzzle this way, then what seems baffling starts to make a little more sense. — Malcolm Gladwell

I think it takes some terrible or great event to fuse two people together without inhibition. Without heat or shock, it can't be done. I believe that's why sexual love, which needn't be, is so intensely intertwined with sin. — Mark Helprin

I was stunned to learn that more than 200,000 abandoned, neglected, or orphaned children had been sent from the East Coast to the Midwest on trains between 1854 and 1929. — Christina Baker Kline