Dumbfounded Quotes & Sayings

Before Tessa could answer, there was a knock at the door, and a familiar voice. "It's Jem. Tessa, are you there?"
Charlotte sat bolt upright. "Oh! He mustn't see you in your dress!"
Tessa stood dumbfounded. "Whyever not?"
"It's a Shadowhunter custom - bad luck!" Charlotte rose to her feet. "Quickly! Hide behind the wardrobe!"
"The wardrobe? But - " Tessa broke off with a yelp as Charlotte seized her about the waist and frog-marched her behind the wardrobe like a policeman with a particularly resistant criminal. Released, Tessa dusted off her dress and made a face at Charlotte, and they both peeked around the side of the furniture as the seamstress, after a bewildered look, opened the door.
Jem's silvery head appeared in the gap. He looked a bit disheveled, his jacket askew. He glanced around in puzzlement before his gaze lighted on Charlotte and Tessa, half-concealed behind the wardrobe. — Cassandra Clare

I am dumbfounded that there hasn't been a crackdown with the libel and slander laws on some of these would-be writers and reporters on the Internet. — Walter Cronkite

What did he mean, 'insatiable lust'?"
She hastened to explain. "Well, 'insatiable' means unable to satisfy-"
"I know that," he said in a biting tone. "Why did he say that about you?"
Sara rolled her eyes and shrugged. "It was nothing. I merely tried to kiss him once the way you kissed me..." Her voice faded as she realized that her parents were watching the pair of them in dumbfounded silence.
Isaac was the fist to speak, a smile twitching the corners of his mouth. "I've seen and heard enough, Mr. Craven. If you and my daughter are already talking about 'insatiable lust,' I think I'd better give you my approval... and hope for a quick wedding. — Lisa Kleypas

The alchemist was dazed and dumbfounded, as the true meaning of the magic was revealed: *The dead will rise from glade to glen and ancient will be young again*. The dead had, after all, risen. From dead and dry things there was growth, and new life everywhere. And the endlessly long winter had at last turned to spring.
From life to death and back again to life. It was indeed the greatest magic in the world. — Lauren Oliver

Dr. Eklund was utterly dumbfounded. Did the prime minister think that a waiter who had dropped out of school before he was ten years old could be put to use to build atom bombs for Sweden? — Jonas Jonasson

CALLING VERSUS TEXTING "A phone call? The WORST." - FEMALE FOCUS GROUP PARTICIPANT "If you want to talk to me, you're going to have to call me." - ANOTHER FEMALE FOCUS GROUP PARTICIPANT [Dumbfounded] - EVERY GUY IN THAT FOCUS GROUP — Aziz Ansari

I'm dumbfounded by me all the time. Wow! What a ... thrill ... and a joy — Layne Staley

Was this how trauma worked? she wondered. Those closest to it remained dumbfounded by the fact that those who weren't present could derive meaning from it? — Kevin Wilson

I was dumbfounded by the stupidity of the Watergate break-in. — Gerald R. Ford

Dumbfounded, adj.
And still, for all the jealousy, all the doubt, sometimes I will be struck with a kind of awe that we're together. That someone like me could find someone like you - it renders me wordless. Because surely words would conspire against such luck, would protest the unlikelihood of such a turn of events.
I didn't tell any of my friends about our first date. I waited until after our second, because I wanted to make sure it was real. I wouldn't believe it had happened until it had happened again. Then, later on, I would be overwhelmed by the evidence, by all the lines connecting you to me, and us to love. — David Levithan

After a few moments, her eyes became as glossy as his and she also spoke in complete nonsense. "Who are you?" Mother Goose asked the caterpillar. "What I am," he said. "Where are you?" she said. "Here with you," the caterpillar said. "And if this were the Castle of Hearts?" Mother Goose asked. "We'd be there," he said. "But where?" she asked. "In the castle," he said. "Ah, so there would be here," she said, and they nodded together. "Here would be what's left." The caterpillar nodded. "Am I what's left?" she asked. "You're what's right, of course." "But what's right is wrong." "And what's left is right." "I understand completely," Mother Goose said. "Thank you so much, Mr. Caterpillar." The others stared at them absolutely dumbfounded. Mother Goose hopped down from the mushroom and moseyed back to them. — Chris Colfer

Another reason we know that language could not determine thought is that when a language isn't up to the conceptual demands of its speakers, they don't scratch their heads dumbfounded (at least not for long); they simply change the language. They stretch it with metaphors and metonyms, borrow words and phrases from other languages, or coin new slang and jargon. (When you think about it, how else could it be? If people had trouble thinking without language, where would their language have come from-a committee of Martians?) Unstoppable change is the great given in linguistics, which is not why linguists roll their eyes at common claims such as that German is the optimal language of science, that only French allows for truly logical expression, and that indigenous languages are not appropriate for the modern world. As Ray Harlow put it, it's like saying, Computers were not discussed in Old English; therefore computers cannot be discussed in Modern English. — Steven Pinker

I said no strippers, I said, watching dumbfounded as Trenton danced around the room to Britney Spears. — Jamie McGuire

Shit," Paul says. "She paid for Matt's treatment." "What?" I'm still dumbfounded. "She went back home for you," he explains. He still has Matt on the phone, and he's talking to both of us at the same time. She did it all for me. "She did it for me," I say out loud. "You lucky fucker," Paul says, punching me in the arm. "She'll be back for the spring session at Juilliard." Warm happiness settles around me like a blanket fresh out of the dryer. Paul nods. "Matt will be home by then." We all hope Matt will be home by then. Matt has a chance to come home, and it's all because of Emily. I jump up, and Paul pulls me into a hug. "She'll be back?" I ask. I can't wrap my head around it all. "She's not gone for good?" "She just told the whole fucking world how much she loves you, you jackass." Paul punches me in the shoulder again. She's coming back. To Juilliard. To me. — Tammy Falkner

A moral man is essentially dumbfounded when confronted by a man who is amoral - everything the latter does is met with a certain disbelief. — Andrew Holleran

So if I take off my clothes and lay down on the table, you wouldn't have sex with me?"

He chuckled. "Nope."
"You sure?"

"Yep." He continued on with cooking while I stood there, dumbfounded. I didn't believe him for a second. His back stiffened when I took off my shirt and pants and climbed up on the table."

"I am so hungry," I announced, waiting for him to turn around. When he did, he completely ignored me and sat down with his plate of food.
He pointed to the counter. "Your plate's up there. — L.P. Dover

Lesa's eyes flicked up behind me and widened. "Wow. Now that's even more unexpected."
Something smelled sweet and familiar. Confused, I twisted around. A single rose in full bloom, a vibrant red, brushed against the tip of my nose. Tan fingers held the green stem. My eyes lifted.
Daemon stood there, his eyes glittering like green tinsel. He patted me on the nose with the rose again. "Good morning."
Dumbfounded, I stared at him.
"This is for you," he added when I didn't say anything. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Like all Xhosa children, I acquired knowledge mainly through observation. We were meant to learn through imitation and emulation, not through questions. When I first visited the homes of whites, I was often dumbfounded by the number and nature of questions that children asked of their parents-and their parents' unfailing willingness to answer them. In my household, questions were considered a nuisance; adults imparted information as they considered necessary. — Nelson Mandela

You'll probably throw me out eventually. Next week..or twenty years from now ... Sooner or later, you'll get worn out ... And leave me for real ... Maybe I'll gaze, dumbfounded, at a life with nothing left. That's okay, I'll watch you leave ... knowing our love has died. I'll adorn the road of death with flowers. Since that's all I can do. — Setona Mizushiro

Be helpless, dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
to gather us up.
We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.
If we say we can, we're lying.
If we say No, we don't see it,
That No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit.
So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Beside ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.
When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness. — Rumi

Love? And not even some platonic cosmic love, but the carnal attraction between two mammals? Do you really think that an all-knowing super-computer or aliens who contrived to conquer the entire galaxy would be dumbfounded by a hormonal rush?' By — Yuval Noah Harari

I don't suppose you offered to help?"
"Sage," Adrian declared. "These hands don't do manual labor." He knocked another ball into a hole. "You want to play?"
"What? With you?"
"No, with Clarence." He sighed at my dumbfounded look. "Yes, of course with me. — Richelle Mead

The future is bound to surprise us, but we don't have to be dumbfounded. — Kenneth E. Boulding

The miracle left him dumbfounded, that his heart had not yet shirked its weary task of pumping his bored blood through his brain. — Janny Wurts

Nev tossed his pen down. "Fine. Here goes:
Ren and Cals lives may be torrid
for the young ones in Vail are quite horrid
Bine and Cos aren't too frail
Dax and Fey never pale
while Ansel and Bryn might get sordid
Bryn spit Diet Coke all over the table. Mason and Ansel clapped. I was too dumbfounded to react.
This is qhat quiet Nev does in his spare time?
"'Bine'?" Sabine frowned while Cosette mopped up the soda that flowed to their end of the table. "Since when am I 'Bine'? And we never call Cosette 'Cos.'"
"It's about cadence," Nev said. "Sorry. I said it wasn't very good."
"Why aren't you and Mason in it?" Ansel asked.
"Oh, he has another one about us." Mason wiggled his eyebrows. — Andrea Cremer

Yet for all the depression no one ever quit. When someone quit, we couldn't believe it. 'I'm becoming a rafting instructor on the Colorado River,' they said. 'I'm touring college towns with my garage band.' We were dumbfounded. It was like they were from another planet. Where had they found the derring-do? What would they do about car payments? We got together for going away drinks on their final day and tried to hide our envy while reminding ourselves that we still had the freedom and luxury to shop indiscriminately. — Joshua Ferris

We are the graceless and dumbfounded, insane with our own insatiable desire for another time and place. — David Means

You think you can uncuff me now?"
"Sorry, man, I have orders not to do that. Madison said she would bring me a huge slice of cake if I left you cuffed."
"You're leaving me like this for cake?" he asked dumbfounded that cake held that kind of power over a boy. He wondered if it was like bloodlust. — R.L. Mathewson

I stood dumbfounded, founded in dumbness. — Maya Angelou

What the fuck kind of cruel joke was this? Elsa stared at the last page for nearly a minute in dumbfounded shock and denial. If she hadn't stolen the damned thing, she would've demanded a refund. She felt like screaming at the top of her lungs, but instead, all that came out was lunatic laughter. She really was insane and Mr. Black was all to blame. — Ella Dominguez

Now her life was under attack, and she [Kit] was shocked to find how fragile everything she'd built really was. She was dumbfounded, too to find that while people were being ripped from her life like paper dolls from a chain, she longed to be the one who'd be gone first. — Vicki Pettersson

I am Midnight
(cats stare dumbfounded) — Erin Hunter

I can't actually believe how good 'The Sopranos' is. I genuinely am dumbfounded by it. It's like when you realize how good The Beatles are, and you think, 'How did they do that?' — Martin Freeman

Dumbfounded arrogance can clutch a man, but woe will certainly kill him — Aaron Ozee

When I asked [my dad why the sky was blue] he said it was because God's a boy. If God were a girl, the sky would be pink.
'What about sunrise and sunset?' I'd asked.
Dad had looked dumbfounded. 'You kids. You think too much.'
It frightened me how shallow the gene pool was that Liam and I were wading in. — Julie Anne Peters

Enoch's dumbfounded stare focused on Gabriel, until Uriel spoke. Uriel said to Enoch, "Elohim is the true and living God, the Creator of the universe. He has chosen you as his representative to proclaim judgment upon the gods and upon their giant progeny, the Nephilim." "You call that subtle?" muttered Gabriel under his breath. "More lyrical than you will ever be," quipped Uriel. He turned back to Enoch. "Terror is about to break out on all the land, and Elohim has commissioned you to reject the gods of Shinar and become his prophet. — Brian Godawa

The teacher that I was for decades, and that I still am in a certain way, wondered what was meant by the word education. I was truly dumbfounded at the very thought of dealing with such an essential and extensive subject. — Abdoulaye Wade

She tried to twist from his grip, but he held firm. Gods, she wanted to throw him across the cave - and with the same strength as when she'd pinned him earlier.
"What in the hell were you thinking to enter a competition like the Hie?" He gave her shoulders a jostle. "You knew what you were getting into, and you still signed up. You could have died!" he roared, shaking her hard.
She raised her hands to shove against his chest; he flew across the cavern, as though tossed against the far wall.
When he landed, he looked as dumbfounded as she felt. MacRieve was like a lightning rod for her powers. Whenever she wanted to use them against him, they worked perfectly.
As he made it back to his feet, an expression of such pure menace twisted his face that she thought he could kill her.
Fitting - since she was about to kill him. — Kresley Cole

They who were so important, who wanted to create the world, are dumbfounded; everything crumbles. — Maurice Blanchot

Behind me, Eaden cleared his throat. "Rachel?" He was holding open the door of a sleek, tiny black sports car, the kind I didn't know the name of, but recognized as expensive. He looked amused at the way my mouth fell open a little.
"You drive?" I was dumbfounded. I walked back towards him and the glossy black automobile.
He raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I drive. I'm immortal, not Amish. — Georgia Bell

We have to emphasize to the gay community that opposition to same-sex marriages is not about hate, but about debate. Opposition to what some of us see as a devastating move that will further weaken the family and harm children
such opposition is not hateful. Morality is not bigotry.
In their book The Homosexual Agenda, authors Alan Sears and Craig Osten give this illustration, which I've summarized: Imagine that you are standing at the bottom of a cliff and you are watching as someone on the ledge above you is walking backwards, and in a few steps he will surely fall over the precipice. You shout, warning him to stop, and before you know it, a crowd gathers around you, snapping your picture and accusing you of "hate speech." You are being warned to keep your prejudices to yourself. After all, who are you to tell someone where they can and can't walk? Who are you to say that someone can't walk backwards? You are dumbfounded, but there you are, the object of everyone's wrath. — Erwin W. Lutzer

She even wanted to get drunk. Yet something kept her feet on the ground. She could never truly escape her condition. She could drink as much as she wanted, but it wouldn't change anything. She was just there, in a state of complete lucidity, watching herself perform like an actress on a stage. Splitting herself in two, she was dumbfounded to see the woman she no longer was, someone who could exist in life, who could project appeal. It put all the details of her inability to exist in an even harsher light. — David Foenkinos

I've got a very short attention span, and this has been part of the reason I'm so kind of dumbfounded at the fact that I've still stayed with music. Nothing has ever stuck for me, and music's the only thing that's managed to stick out for a long period of time. — Gin Wigmore

I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe. — Leo Rosten

I thought it could be something, I mean, eventually." Harrison finally looks at us. "My life I thought-but I mean ... it's nothing."
"Don't cry" Grace says. "You have a lot of time."
"No, I don't."
"Yeah, you do."
"No.-"
"Yeah! Yeah, you do. It's okay. Look-"
She does something that is so amazingly selfless and also gross. She tilts Harrison's face up and gives him a sweet kiss on the lips and it lasts long enough for him to taste her back, to move his mouth against hers.
Harrison stares at her dumbfounded but he's stopped crying
She is so nice. — Courtney Summers

He told me was seeking contributions to the Jimmy Carter Library. I asked how much he had in mind. And he said, " Donald, I would be very appreciative if you contributed five million dollars."I was dumbfounded. I didn't even answer him.But that experience also taught me something.Until then, I'd never understood how Jimmy Carter became president. The answer is that as poorly qualified he was for the job, Jimmy Carter had the nerve, the guts, the balls, to ask for something extraordinary. That ability above all helped him get elected president. — Donald J. Trump

Miss New Mexico stared, dumbfounded. "Stand out? Stand out? I have a freaking tray stuck in my forehead!" She broke into fresh sobs.
Taylor clapped for attention. "Miss New Mexico, let's not get all down in the bummer basement where the creepy things live. There are people in heathen China who don't even have airline trays. We have a lot to be grateful for. — Libba Bray

We are just one of many pieces that are being played out in a strategic and elaborate game. The moves that are made may not always seem logical, but are intended for a reason which we may never understand nor fully are able to accept. When the game has finally reached its conclusion, we then have no other choice but to stand there dumbfounded. Not only are we then scratching our head and wondering how in the hell it happened, but we also wonder how it was we did not see that coming. — Steven F. Deslippe

Miss Howard: Like a good detective story myself. Lots of nonsense written, though. Criminal discovered in last Chapter. Everyone dumbfounded. Real crime - you'd know at once. — Agatha Christie

Ordinary British soldiers harbored several strange preconceptions of their own. Some were surprised that the colonists wore clothes, thinking they would dress like Indians. Other had expected to encounter roving bands of wild animals in the manner of African jungles. And when a loyalist came aboard one ship to help it into port, the British crew and troops were dumbfounded. "All the People had been of the Opinion," they exclaimed, "that the inhabitants of America were black. — Joseph J. Ellis

wax and seemed dumbfounded by the accident. Next thing he wanted to know 'how long it would take to' . . . I interrupted him again. Being hungry, you know, and kept on my feet too, I was getting savage. 'How could I tell,' I said. 'I hadn't even seen the wreck yet - some months, no doubt.' All this talk seemed to me so futile. 'Some months,' he said. 'Well, let us say three months before we can make a start. Yes. That ought to do the affair.' I flung out of his hut (he lived all alone in a clay hut with a sort of veranda) muttering to — Joseph Conrad

It's just plain learning something that you didn't know. There is a real aesthetic experience in being dumbfounded. — Lewis Thomas

Have you ever loved anyone?"
"You mean besides my mum?"
Luke was dumbfounded as he stared at Jack. He knew his friend's story. "She sold you when you were five."
Jack shrugged. "Doesn't mean I didn't love her. Just means she didn't love me. — Lorraine Heath

I don't date Nicole." "You don't what?" I ask dumbfounded. "I don't date." "Dragon, everyone dates." "I don't." I don't really know how to respond. It seems unreal, but I can tell he is completely serious. "Like ever?" "That's what I said, Mama." "How can you tell if you like a girl if you don't even know her?" I ask and something about this conversation hurts me. "I fuck her. — Jordan Marie

Are you telling me that vampires and werewolves are the reason America won the Revolutionary War?," I asked, dumbfounded. — Drew Hayes

For an instant I was dumbfounded. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

I think the word dumbfounded is another one of those compounds I love to ponder. Only this one seems to make sense. It is like finding dumb. Like finding you are at a loss for words (completely amazed and astonished). At that very moment I was officially and irrevocably dumbfounded. There was no way to for me to explain what had just happened. — J.W. Lord

While trauma keeps us dumbfounded, the path out of it is paved with words, carefully assembled, piece by piece, until the whole story can be revealed. — Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

I slammed the back door shut and gave Caspian a look.
He put both hands up in the air, "What? I didn't do anything."
"No. But you wanted to. And besides, we don't really know yet what can you do."
"Well, I know I can't make people disappear," he muttered darkly "or else he would have been gone a half an hour ago"
I was shocked at how serious he sounded, and then I looked into his eyes, "You're jealous!"
"He wanted to kiss you!"
Now I was dumbfounded, "How do you know that?"
"Because," he said, running a hand through his hair and pushing it back "It's what I'd want to do — Jessica Verday

I thought you wanted to leave me." Jurgen sounded dazed.
Nik patted his chest. "My poor, big, dumb asshole." He sighed, kissing Jurgen's neck. "Why didn't you just ask me?"
Nik could feel the dumbfounded rising up from Jurgen's skin. "I don't know," he said slowly. "I didn't need to ask you if I knew how to fix it."
"Oh, Jurgen." Nik patted him some more, petting his sternum. "We could probably spend a few years and thousands of dollars in psychologist's fees figuring you out, couldn't we? — Anne Tenino

It's a little blip. There's a tiny little blip in my belly. Tiny. Wow. I forget my discomfort as I stare dumbfounded at the blip ... The little blip is a baby. A real honest to goodness baby. Christian's baby. My baby. Holy cow. A baby! - Ana Grey — E.L. James

Well ... I'm on birth control"
I was drinking the water again and choked on it. It took several moments of coughing before I could gasp out. "What?"
"It takes a while for it to start working, so I figured I should be prepared, just in case."
"Just in case," I repeated, still dumbfounded. — Richelle Mead

Dumbfounded, I stood before the court, trying to figure out if there was a state of being between "guilty" and "innocent." Why were those my only alternatives? I thought. Why couldn't I be "neither" or "both"? After a long pause, I finally faced the bench and said, "Your Honor, I plead human. — Paul Beatty

Half an hour into the movie, Margot started giggling, but it wasn't a funny part or anything. When Quinn looked over at her, she was covering her mouth and nose with one hand while waving the other in front of her. He couldn't hide his shock. No fucking way!
"Margot! You did not just fart!" Quinn exclaimed. He was absolutely dumbfounded. No woman has ever farted in front of him, not even his mom.
"I am sorry!" She laughed. "You would have never known if it did not smell!"
Quinn burst out laughing. He caught a whiff and laughed harder as he clapped a hand over his nose. It wasn't that bad, but he decided to play along. He was laughing so hard that he had tears running down his face. He couldn't remember the last time he laughed until he cried. Margot too was laughing so hard that she had tears running down her face. She gave him a playful shove, which only made it harder for him to breathe. — Andria Large

I fought hard for such a framing at the Conference of the Parties 6 in The Hague in 2000, but was opposed not by the usual suspects - industrial interests and OPEC - but rather by those who were more "green" - World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, and European Green Party delegates. I was dumbfounded. Why didn't they want to support a plan to both keep carbon in the forests and get a double bonus of biodiversity protection? The debates were heated. I thought the argument against it - no baseline for additionality - was legitimate, but not an insurmountable obstacle. Baselines are negotiable, and protecting primary forests should at least have been on the agenda. The passion of the opponents seemed totally misplaced. One evening during COP 6, I went to the environment NGOs' tent for a reception. In this more informal setting, — Stephen H. Schneider

His features, shaping into something resembling dumbfounded astonishment, were cast in a warm glow from a shaded nearby lamp.
He looked earnestly surprised and a little boyish. Smash, smash, smash.
His mesmerizing eyes narrowed as they looked over my now completely covered form, the only skin showing was that of my face and hands. If I'd been thinking clearly and sober I might have felt ridiculous; instead, as I was most definitely not thinking clearly and was most definitely not sober, I was cursing myself for leaving my gloves in Chicago and I was looking for my glasses.
He shifted on his feet, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and studied me with open and growing amusement; Are you going somewhere? — Penny Reid

I can turn into anything," he said with emphasis. "Even another werewolf."
When Daisy blinked back at him, too dumbfounded to speak, Talent laughed, heartily. She'd been correct. He was devastating when he truly smiled. "Haven't you learned, woman? You've fallen off the map. Here there be monsters. — Kristen Callihan

Suppose you had said to my hypothetical family of 1800, eating their gristly stew in front of a log fire, that in two centuries their descendants would need to fetch no logs or water, and carry out no sewage, because water, gas, and a magic form of invisible power called electricity would come into their home through pipes and wires. They would jump at the chance to have such a home, but they would warily ask ho they could possibly afford it. Suppose that you then told them that to earn such a home, they need only ensure that father and mother both have to go to work for eight hours in an office, travelling roughly forty minutes each way in a horseless carriage, and that the children need not work at all, but should go to school to be sure of getting such jobs when they start to work at twenty. They would be more than dumbfounded; they would be delirious with excitement. — Matt Ridley

My mother gave Lindsey a meaningful look. 'We are not discussing this further. You can go up to your room and wait or wait with me. Your choice.'
Lindsey was dumbfounded. She stared at our mother and knew what she wanted most: to flee, to run out into the cornfield where my father was, where I was, where she felt suddenly that the heart of her family had moved. But Buckley wtood warm against her.

~pg 143; Lindsey, Buckley and Mom — Alice Sebold

Anthony watched him, dumbfounded, and then turned to Lucy. "What have you done with Zack's brain?"
Lucy stood to follow Zack. "What brain? I don't think he has one. I think he's just one giant exposed nerve ending. I swear sometimes at night, I can hear his neurons snapping like popcorn. — Jennifer Crusie

I'm dumbfounded, but nothing surprises me in this game. — Francis Lee

She Snores," said Siku, looking at me. "You better get earplugs. That kind of thing runs in the family."

I opened my mouth, glancing at Caleb, whose eyes got wide in disbelief. Had Siku made a joke? I was too dumbfounded to reply. — Nina Berry

Some time after dinner a newsboy rushed into the lobby of the Ambassador with extra editions of a German-language paper, the only one I can read since I do not know Czech. The headlines said: Chamberlain to fly to Berchtesgaden tomorrow to see Hitler! The Czechs are dumbfounded. They suspect a sell-out and I'm afraid they're right. — William L. Shirer

She had opened the refrigerator door and was looking at her supply of frozen microwave dinners with an expression of distaste when the doorman buzzed. Deciding to forget about dinner, something she'd done too often lately, she depressed the switch. "Yes, Dennis?"
"Mr. Payne and Mr. McCoy are here to see you, Ms. Granger," Dennis said smoothly. "From the FBI."
"What?" Jay asked, startled, sure she'd misunderstood.
Dennis repeated the message, but the words remained the same.
She was totally dumbfounded. "Send them up," she said, because she didn't know what else to do. FBI? What on earth? Unless slamming your apartment door was somehow against federal law, the worst she could be accused of was tearing the tags off her mattress and pillows. Well, why not? This was a perfectly rotten end to a perfectly rotten day. — Linda Howard

Worry is useless. Worry saps our strength and steals our focus. It causes us to be more awestruck and dumbfounded by storms than by the one who silences storms with a word. — Judah Smith

You can see the rider serving the elephant when people are morally dumbfounded. They have strong gut feelings about what is right and wrong, and they struggle to construct post hoc justifications for those feelings. Even when the servant (reasoning) comes back empty-handed, the master (intuition) doesn't change his judgment. — Jonathan Haidt

Leibniz is at the disadvantage of not having seen it. Or perhaps we should count this as an advantage, for anyone who sees it is dumbfounded by the brilliance of the geometry, and it is difficult to criticize a man's work when you are down on your knees shielding your eyes. — Neal Stephenson