Conundrum Quotes & Sayings

While grace does do away with the need for good works, it's grace which also makes good works truly possible. If good works don't play into your salvation, then doing them is a sheer act of love, both for those they benefit and to God. It's a way of solving the conundrum of how can a good work be truly good if the doer of the work expects to benefit from it in any way.
-David Clark — David Clark

Off flew his shirt, which landed on an outstretched arm of the ceiling fan. 'Beats me. God, is there a padlock on this thing?'
'It's not rocket science, Driggs. It's a bra.'
'It's a Rubik's cube of diabolical proportions, is what it - ha! Suck it, evil underwear!' Triumphant, he flung the unfastened conundrum across the room [ ... ] — Gina Damico

2001: A Space Odyssey was a wonderful conundrum when I was a boy, with its giant concepts thrown across the giant screen at Indian Hills Theater. That movie woke me up in ways that I hadn't imagined, and I went searching for book versions of the same drug. — Robert Reed

As much as they deny it, I think people want to be scared. It's a phenomenon, why people want to be scared when there is so much violence and craziness in the world. People still really enjoy being scared. It's a conundrum to me. It's hard to explain. It's an unconscious thing, really, why people like that so much. — Dylan McDermott

Here's the conundrum: We want to tell our stories! But if condensation is the language of wishes - especially the most verboten and destructive ones - the more you spell the story out, the less aesthetically charged it becomes. The question is whether untransformed experience can ever be aesthetically powerful, or whether it's simply interesting. Literary language is one solution, with its habits of duality - metaphor, irony - and other techniques for saying opposing things at once. For haunting the reader with ghosts of buried meanings.
Your story may be interesting, but what if, paradoxically, it's what you can't say that makes it lasting? — Laura Kipnis

A distinct germ line maintains continuity from generation to generation, regardless of what happens to the rest of the body. In this way, a body can be seen as a temporary structure that enables the germ line to fulfill its fundamental task of reproduction in each generation. Evolutionary biology therefore has a convincing answer to that age-old conundrum: "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" The egg, of course, came first. Chickens, like people, evolved so that one egg could lead to another. — Robert Martin

Whether talking about addiction, taxation [on cigarettes] or education [about smoking], there is always at the center of the conversation an essential conundrum: How come we're selling this deadly stuff anyway? — Anna Quindlen

Earth or Fillory, did it even matter? What was the huge conundrum? Everywhere you looked there was so much richness, you could never exhaust it. — Lev Grossman

I'm a conundrum. Or an enigma. I forget which. — James A. Owen

I am a puzzle and a conundrum and a thunderstorm. — Brian Doyle

There are no coincidences in this world ... You must see with the eagle's eye. You must detach, lift above a conundrum, and map the terrain of it. Everything happens for a reason, if you can but discern the pattern. — Karen Marie Moning

Happiness, if you think about it, is the biggest conundrum we face. The pursuit of it is why we do basically everything that we do, and yet, none of that effort is necessary: it's the simplest choice of changing our state of mind. — Brianna Wiest

'Quantum Conundrum' has a little bit of something for everybody - it's got something for kids and it's got enough of a challenge for a hardcore gamer. — Kim Swift

It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death
ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. One must negotiate this passage as nobly as possible, for the sake of those who are coming after us. — James Baldwin

That's the conundrum of cartoon stripping, as opposed to political cartoons. When your anger is the driving force of your drawing hand, failure follows. The anger is OK, but it has to serve the interests of the heart, frankly. — Berkeley Breathed

He knew Alec enough by now to know the conflicting impulses that warred in him. He was conscientious, the kind of person who believed that the others around him were so much more important than he was, who already believed he was letting everybody down. And he was honest, the kind of person that was naturally open about all he felt and wanted. Alec's virtues had made a trap for him; these two good qualities had collided painfully. He felt he could not be honest without disappointing everyone he loved. It was a hideous conundrum for him. It was as if the world had been designed to make him unhappy. — Cassandra Clare

But you know in the contemporary art world, you pose a very interesting conundrum. All sorts of people collect very contemporary art, yet when it comes to the music which is analogous to that sort of art, they are not interested, or perhaps even hostile. — Michael Tilson Thomas

She considered the familiar conundrum inherent in complimenting a child for doing something well in the course of what ought not to have been done at all, and kept her peace. — Lois McMaster Bujold

This is the conundrum of the present regimes in the Arab world. They still want to control youth; they want to be in control as they did in the 1950s and '60s. But that doesn't work anymore. Now with just a Wi-Fi link, you can understand what's happening in the world. — Bassem Youssef

I find I can't get rid of my trashiness as an artist. A lot of my themes in painting, to the extent that there are intentional themes, are meant to bring that conundrum into high relief. — John Currin

I was never really cut out to be a student, I prefer to actually work and get a project done and learn that way- but I have a huge respect for good teachers and even enjoy teaching ... I am a conundrum! — Holly Golightly

If you're now noticing a certain family resemblance among this no-successive-instant problem, Zeno's Paradoxes, and some of the Real Line crunchers described in Paragraph 2c and -e, be advised that this is not a coincidence. They are all facets of the great continuity conundrum for mathematics, which is that (Infinity)-related entities can apparently be neither handled nor eliminated. Nowhere is this more evident than with 1/(Infinity)s. They're riddled with paradox and can't be defined, but if you banish them from math you end up having to posit an infinite density to any interval, in which the idea of succession makes no sense and no ordering of points in the interval can ever be complete, since between any two points there will be not just some other points but a whole infinity of them.
Overall point: However good calculus is at quantifying motion and change, it can do nothing to solve the real paradoxes of continuity. Not without a coherent theory of (Infinity), anyway. — David Foster Wallace

She remembered Grace telling her about Lorcan's evasiveness when she'd first joined the Noctourne-his ability to speak without saying anything, to talk in riddles.
He's a conundrum, thought Cheng Li. A walking, talking conundrum — Justin Somper

I think that today, more so than ever, corporate responsibility is the best strategic as well as financial path that most businesses can follow. For most businesses there are both compelling reasons to be responsible and compelling statistics that validate that responsible businesses do better according to traditional financial metrics. Of course, how you define "responsible" is somewhat of a conundrum. — Jeffrey Hollender

Politics is a necessary evil, or a necessary annoyance, a necessary conundrum. — P. J. O'Rourke

So that makes us robbers of robbers," said Bug, "who pretend to be robbers working for a robber of other robbers. — Scott Lynch

The science of the spirit and its relationship to the body in which it indwells is a complex conundrum. Life is not what it appears to be. Life is wholesome, and this unison of synergistic amalgamations persuade the common view that one thing is the other. But one thing is many things - at the one time - and this simple truth goes to the essence of all life with its manifold complexities. — Gabriel Brunsdon

It was the eternal conundrum. Time passed too slowly, and then it was over too quickly. Hurry up and die. — Leslie Meier

Asking someone out on a date is a simple task that frequently becomes a terrifying conundrum of fear, self-doubt, and anxiety. It's full of tough decisions: How do I ask? In person? Phone call? Text? What do I say? Could this person be the person I end up spending the rest of my life with? What if this is the only person for me? What if I fuck it all up with the wrong message? Though technology has added a few new, modern quirks to this dilemma, asking a new person to go on a romantic outing has never been easy. It means declaring your attraction to someone and putting yourself out there in a huge way, while risking the brutal possibility of rejection - or, — Aziz Ansari

Our dreams are little stories or puzzles that we must solve to be free, Sebastian said. He was reading out loud from Wilson's notebook. My dream is me offering me a solution to the conundrum of my life. My dream is me offering me something that I need and my responsibility to myself is to try to understand what it means. Our dreams are a thin curtain between survival and extinction. — Miriam Toews

'Quantum Conundrum' is a direct reflection, not just of me, but of our entire team. It has a little bit of all of our personalities in it. — Kim Swift

The only modern narrative that handles the conundrum semi-successfully is Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko, where schizophrenic heartthrob Jake Gyllenhaal uses a portal to move back in time twelve days, thereby allowing himself to die in an accident he had previously avoided. By removing himself from the equation, he never meets his new girlfriend, which keeps her from dying in a car accident that was his fault. — Chuck Klosterman

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there "is" such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and postive action. — Martin Luther King Jr.

And we are in a strange conundrum. You can kill an American citizen overseas. But according to this administration, if you capture him in the United States, they've got to be read their Miranda rights. — John McCain

Planetologist call it the conundrum of unforeseen ecological consequence. I call it the whack-a-mole rule of human meddling. She clasped both hands like a child hammering. WHACK! We change something here. Oops, that makes another problem pop up there where we didn't expect it. WHACK! So, we whack that mole. Oops! We're so smart that we're a menace. — Robert Buettner

He's a conundrum- and there's still a piece missing from the puzzle. Whatever that piece was, there was a part of me telling me not to get involved- that it was too much to handle. That you shouldn't go out on a limb unless you're absolutely sure the limb can support your weight. — Neal Shusterman

Sonnet I
If thee must say that I am not who I am,
That I am not real or true,
Then thou must say you are not as well,
For we either walk in fairytales and dance to our dreams,
Or we die trying to capture a miracle between the ordinary moments,
We rejoice in the gratitude for our needs met,
But we pray for the staircases and open doors to our desires,
We redefine our gratitude with another day,
Another dance of praise to Thee for undoing are mistakes of unneeded wants and needs we want, but not met. — Shannon L. Alder

It is a disturbing conundrum that true free will cannot exist without the possibility of suicide. Then again, it ain't over 'til it's over! — Yogi Berra

Conundrum: A fun word to repeat over and over again when no one's listening. Actual meaning is as puzzling as the need to chant the word. — Richelle E. Goodrich

It is nearly an insoluble pancake, a conundrum of inscrutable potentialities, a snorter. — Flann O'Brien

The conundrum of sanity and insanity, is that it serves us to be some of each. It's really only a question of degrees. You cannot possibly be 100% adjusted and live in this INSANE world. A little bit of crazy is a coping skill. — Kelli Jae Baeli

Is that all, sir? Only we've got stuff to finish before our knocking-off time, you see, and if we stay late we have to make more money to pay our overtime, and if the lads is a bit tired we ends up earning the money faster'n we can make it, which leads to a bit of what I can only call a conundrum - "
"You mean that if you do overtime you have to do more overtime to pay for it?" said Moist, still pondering how illogical logical thinking can be if a big enough committee is doing it.
"That's right, sir," said Shady. "And down that road madness lies."
"It's a very short road," said Moist, nodding. — Terry Pratchett

Hotel Conundrum: The continental breakfast. What is it that makes continents so shitty at providing an adequate breakfast? — Demetri Martin

You may wonder: how do I overcome the common 'Cute/Insane Conundrum,' as it occurs in men ... Yes, it's a fact - any man who seems cute, fabulous, and incredible to you will, of course, turn out to be insane. — Marilyn Suzanne Miller

His escape is ultimately doomed by his utter devotion to his family, which never diminishes. The guilt brought on by Gregor's newfound inability to provide for his family- financially and emotionally- prevents him from attaining any sort of liberation. Perhaps recognizing this conundrum, Gregor chooses to remain an insect. — Franz Kafka

I think it's a conundrum. If we have no laws on this, people take it to one extension further, does it have to be humans, you know? — Rand Paul

The conundrum of free will and destiny has always kept me dangling. — William Shatner

I think if a person plays 'Quantum Conundrum' and they walk away feeling really intelligent and skilled, that's what I want. That's my only goal. — Kim Swift

Rishi's body had been up until that moment divided on where all his blood should go -- to his cheeks, which by now he assumed must have reached the exact shade of cherries, or to his penis, which had generally been upset with him ever since he and BT had gone their separate ways. This, however, solved that conundrum in an instant. — Shukyou

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood - it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late." Martin Luther King, Jr. — Steven Pressfield

Life is great, and without it, you'd be dead. — Karen Quan

he presented me with a mathematical conundrum," he said. "It's a famous one, the P = NP problem. Basically, it asks whether it's more difficult to think of the solution to a problem yourself or to ascertain if someone else's answer to the same problem is correct. — Keigo Higashino

[I]f we assume a liberty interest but nevertheless say that, even assuming a liberty interest, a state can prohibit it entirely, that would be rather a conundrum. — William Rehnquist

Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death
ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible for life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. — James Baldwin

I got a fancy reputation. During high school, every puzzle that was known to man must have come to me. Every damn, crazy conundrum that people had invented, I knew. — Richard P. Feynman

I was thinking about the act of asking real questions in poems as a kind of spiritual practice. I ask questions relatively often in poems and I ask them because I don't know the answer. And I ask them because I think that poems are fantastic spaces with which to arrive at real conundrum-y kinds of questions, to go as far down the road as you can of understanding something and then sometimes that road ends with a real question. So — Krista Tippett

The great conundrum: sex makes men feel loved; communication makes women feel loved. — Roxanne Snopek

it was a chicken-and-egg conundrum: were they animals because they were in jail . . . or were they in jail because they were animals? — Jodi Picoult

A conundrum of music is that music brings people together, yet to become a skilled musician involves a certain amount of lonely time in which you're just figuring it out, practicing. — Michael Tilson Thomas

A will can save one's family from being put into a quagmired pit of legal conundrum, in case of death (which may even be untimely). — Henrietta Newton Martin

You always were the hot head. You got a temper in you that can't be tamed, yet you also got a soft spot for stray dogs, kids in trouble and damsels in distress. See why folks label you a complex conundrum. — Vonnie Davis

Her forehead, so high and oval, reminded him of how Shakespeare was supposed to look. He was not certain how to put this to her. — Ian McEwan

Then I'm going to pray that God sends a conundrum your way that you must solve and that you can only solve with His help."
Miranda straightened. "That's not very chivalrous."
His eyes were kind but firm. "I admire the woman I've come to know here, and while I can't promise I'll ever see her again, I refuse to let her disappear off the face of the earth. You have to keep her alive. — Regina Jennings

Dave Sim said in his latest thing of his, 'when you're on the right track, you'll know it, but until you get there, you have to believe you're on the right track'. Interesting little conundrum. It's not easy. — Eddie Campbell

It is not a matter of life and death. It is not that important. But it is a reflection of life, and so the game is an enigma wrapped in a mystery impaled on a conundrum. — Peter Alliss

At the heart of 'The Famished Road' is a philosophical conundrum - for me, an essential one: what is reality? Everybody's reality is subjective; it's conditioned by upbringing, ideas, temperament, religion, what's happened to you. — Ben Okri

I think everybody has a hard time connecting, but as you get older and you want more and you expect more and you know more, it's just different. If you start wanting too much from it without it naturally unfolding, then that makes it bad. If you start not wanting anything, then you are not serious. I mean it's just this conundrum of issues. — Uma Thurman

The ... problem that confronts homosexuals is that they set out to win the love of a "real" man. If they succeed, they fail. A man who "goes with" other men is not what they would call a real man. The conundrum is incapable of resolution, but that does not make homosexuals give it up. — Quentin Crisp

She can be a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, inside a conundrum, rolled in a frito burrito. In other words, a total freaking mystery to anyone who isn't gifted with mind-reading abilities. — Michael Makai

These dilemmas present perhaps the most enduring conundrum of human history: can people derive their identity primarily by positive association or does life's meaning also require negative comparison to others? — William J. Clinton

Life is a conundrum of esoterica. — Lemony Snicket

Even on the first day we invaded Plover's house we sensed the conundrum that Americans are faced with in England: they're too frightened of English people to behave rudely to them, and too ignorant to know how to behave politely. — Lev Grossman

I can't save you unless you save me, too. — Karen Quan

Typically my ideas come to me in the most inane ways possible. I had the initial idea for 'Quantum Conundrum' while I was walking down the street to get breakfast. People are like, 'Whoa, what's your inspiration, is it something amazing?' No, I was just really hungry. — Kim Swift

Change biology, and you could change society--but could you change society on its own? Were we as a species simply condemned to permanent misery, all because of how we have evolved?

This was the conundrum that the Oankali books had posed to her, and the Parables had been intended (but failed) to solve: How do you create a more sustainable, more benign, more livable society when you're stuck working with human beings? — Gerry Canavan

Personally, I regard myself as an intellectual 'rebel,' kicking against the 'old colonialism-imperialism paradigm' which has landed Africa in a conundrum. — George Ayittey

Ursula craved solitude but she hated loneliness, a conundrum that she couldn't even begin to solve. — Kate Atkinson

The standard cosmological theory
an expanding universe
does not really solve the problem of God. It simply makes it more problematical. Once the creator-creation model is discarded as primitive mythology, we still have not touched the ancient conundrum, ex nihilo nihil fit: nothing comes from nothing, and the "axiom" that "Nothing is unstable' rivals in scholastic absurdity anything Aquinas may have said eight hundred years ago and can only be postulated given the reality of something, whereby it becomes a self-evident and unarguable tautology. — R. Joseph Hoffmann

The conundrum that I face on a daily basis is that I have two sons who have grown up watching 'The Simpsons,' so they know exactly what buttons to push. They know how Bart irritates Homer, and they use these lines against me to tell me that I'm not funny anymore. — Matt Groening

You are offered proof only once you believe, but if you believe, you can find proof in anything. It is a logical conundrum. — Brandon Sanderson

Competition is a moral problem and an emotional tangle and a political conundrum. — Valerie Miner

There is no blueprint to leadership, quite the conundrum in a business world where standardization is celebrated. — Noel DeJesus