Quotes & Sayings About Puzzled

Seest thou how pale the sated guest rises from supper, where the appetite is puzzled with varieties? The body, too, burdened with I yesterday's excess, weighs down the soul, and fixes to the earth this particle of the divine essence. — Horace

He built a tower to try and be closer to her and walled himself inside."
She stared at him for a moment as if waiting for something. "And?"
He glanced at her, puzzled. "And, what?"
She widened her eyes. "How does the story end? Did the sorcerer win his Moon Maiden?"
"Of course not," he said irritably. "She lived on the moon and was quite unattainable. I suppose he must've starved or pined away or fallen off the wall at some point. — Elizabeth Hoyt

It has always puzzled me that so many people have taken it for granted that God favors those who believe in him. Isn't it possible that the actual God is a scientific God who has little patience with beliefs founded on faith rather than evidence? — Raymond Smullyan

Hi, Albert," Quinn called back. He seemed distracted. And Albert was sure that he'd seen Quinn motion for someone to stay down.
"How long is this supposed to go on?" Albert asked.
"Until we get justice," Quinn said.
"Justice? People have been waiting for justice since the dinosaurs."
Quinn said nothing and Albert cursed himself for indulging in sarcasm. "What is it you want, Quinn? I mean in practical terms."
"We want Penny gone," Quinn said.
"I can't afford to pay you any more," Albert shouted back.
"I didn't say anything about money," Quinn said, sounding puzzled.
"Yeah, I know: justice. Usually what people really want is money. So why don't we get down to it?"
"Penny," Quinn said. "She leaves town. She stays gone. When that happens we fish. Until it happens, we sit." He sat down as if to emphasize his point. — Michael Grant

Ironic and jittery, we are puzzled by the old heroes with their fighting, boasting, and cocksure lovemaking. — Mason Cooley

Shortly afterward, I sat puzzled, grieving over the state of our church. "I think I've lost hope in the church," I confessed, brokenhearted, to a friend. I will never forget her response. "No, you haven't lost hope in the church. You may have lost hope in Christianity or Christendom or all the institutions, but you have not lost hope in the church. This is the church." At that moment, we decided to stop complaining about the church we saw, and we set our hearts on becoming the church we dreamed of. — Shane Claiborne

When you're teaching a hard concept and the students all have puzzled looks on their faces and then suddenly you can see that 'aha' moment, that they got it, that's just an incredible thing. — Anant Agarwal

Everyone was certain that Engineer Safa would go chasing after his wife or he would die of sorrow. Not so. The engineer neither chased after her nor died of sorrow. He shrugged and said, 'The hell with her.' At first, people were puzzled, but then they remembered that life is a sequence of ephemeral events and a succession of fleeting loves. — Goli Taraghi

Poor manners on my part. What is your name?"
"Ria."
"Ria, is that short for Rian?"
"Yes, it is," she smiled.
"Rian, would you please cross your legs?"
The request was made with such an earnest tone that not even a titter escaped the class. Looking puzzled, Rian crossed her legs.
"Now that the gates of hell are closed," Hemme said in his normal rougher tones. "We can begin. — Patrick Rothfuss

He held the flag like a banner of defiance. 'You can take our lives but you'll never take our freedom!' he screamed.

Carcer's men looked at one another, puzzled by what sounded like the most badly thought-out war cry in the history of the universe. — Terry Pratchett

The police helicopters were rising so far away that it seemed someone had blown the gray head off a dry dandelion flower. Two dozen of them flurried, wavering, indecisive, three miles off, like butterflies puzzled by autumn, and then they were plummeting down to land, one by one, here, there, softly kneading the streets where, turned back to beetles, they shrieked along the boulevards or, leapt back to beetles, they shrieked along the boulevards or, as suddenly, leapt back into the air, continuing their search. — Ray Bradbury

Nobody gets excited when they see me. If I put on my wizard outfit and walk around the airport for a couple of hours, I get a couple of puzzled glances. — Andy Kindler

Or may-be one who is puzzled at me.
As if I were not puzzled at myself! — Walt Whitman

As I spread my wings in politics, I discovered many Thatcher voters down south who were the same kind of people who loathed her in Scotland. They were puzzled by the Scots' antipathy, given the Falklands war and the strong militaristic history of the Highlands and elsewhere. — Charles Kennedy

You're a Shadowhunter," he said. "You know how to deal with injuries." He slid his stele across the table toward her. "Use it."
"No," Clary said, and pushed the stele back across the table at him.
Jace slammed his hand down on the stele. "Clary - "
"She said she doesn't want it," said Simon. "Ha-ha."
"Ha-ha?" Jace looked incredulous. "That's your comeback?"
Alec, folding his phone, approached the table with a puzzled look. "What's going on?"
"We seem to be trapped in an episode of One Life to Waste," Magnus observed. "It's all very dull. — Cassandra Clare

I think what art is always doing is making us see the world so differently, and I don't mean just colors and light, but re-thinking relationships, spatial relationships, psychological relationships ... those who gravitate to the art world actually want to be puzzled. — Roselee Goldberg

Of course, if you've ever gotten a surprise package, you can imagine how puzzled and excited Milo was; and if you've never gotten one, pay close attention, because someday you might. — Norton Juster

Madman, thou errest. I say, there is no darkness but ignorance, in which thou art more puzzled than the Egyptians in their fog. — William Shakespeare

Sam, no!" Edilio snapped.
Sam missed a step, then stopped. He looked at Edilio, puzzled.
"We're scattered. And we can't risk you. You die and the light dies with you."
"Are you out of your mind? You think I'm going to let Drake come in here and take Diana?"
"Not you, Sam. Dekka, yes. Orc, yes. He's out there, too. And send Jack as well. Anyone but you."
Sam looked like he'd been punched. Like someone had knocked the wind out of him. He blinked and started to say something and stopped.
"You aren't replaceable, Sam. Figure it out, okay? It's going dark and you make light. So this isn't going to be your battle. Not now. It's on the rest of us to step up. — Michael Grant

Labour ministers often look puzzled when reports show that Britain has one of the lowest levels of social mobility in the developed world. They just don't get it. They see poverty, inequality, fairness, as all about income. For the past 12 years, they have relied on tax credits to solve this. But tax credits do not solve poverty: they mask it. — Theresa May

there was much breathless talk of new elements, bizarre optical properties, and other things which puzzled men of science are wont to say when faced by the unknown. Hot — H.P. Lovecraft

Writers are like eremites or anchorites - natural-born eremites or anchorites - who seem puzzled as to why they went up the pole or into the cave in the first place. — Joy Williams

And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any. — Thomas Paine

Written in pain, written in awe
By a puzzled man who questioned
What we were here for — David Bowie

The Grimm brothers always said that their informants were women, which is possibly not true, women of the people. There is the constant evocation of women's voices, in the collecting and arrangement of these stories, and yet the message of so many of them is incredibly misogynist. I was very puzzled by that, and that book explores that contradiction. — Marina Warner

I am really puzzled to understand myself. — Lincoln Steffens

They'd be complaining about having to walk, and screeching at me to 'do something, Freddy, do something!'"
"But what could you do?" she said, puzzled.
"Carry them, probably." He gave her a hopeful look. "Do you want me to carry you? — Anne Gracie

I'm sure they just felt more comfortable talking to me.'
'Why would I make them so uncomfortable?' Mulder asked.
Scully faced him, hesitating... 'It's probably because of your... reputation.'
'Reputation?' he echoed, sounding puzzled. 'I have a reputation?'
Mulder was deliberately giving her a hard time... 'They feel your methods, your theories are...'
'Spooky?' Mulder guessed. 'What about you? You think I'm... spooky? — Ellen Steiber

Mystic: a person who is puzzled before the obvious, but who understands the non-existent. — Elbert Hubbard

Great men should think of opportunity and not of time. That is the excuse of feeble and puzzled spirits. — Benjamin Disraeli

The world. You're cut out for failure, and you know it. Though you're capable of being a son-of-a-bitch, you're not quite ruthless enough to be so consistently. Though you're not precisely the most honest man I've ever known, neither are you heroically dishonest. On the one hand, you're capable of work, but you're just lazy enough so that you can't work as hard as the world would want you to. On the other hand, you're not quite so lazy that you can impress upon the world a sense of your importance. And you're not lucky - not really. No aura rises from you, and you wear a puzzled expression. — John Edward Williams

When the Mattachine Society of Washington's founder, Frank Kameny, testified to a congressional committee in 1962, he informed his interrogators that the group's mailing list had only about a hundred names on it. That was inconceivable to congressmen such as John Dowdy, a Texas Democrat who had assumed that the society was an arm of a "national and international organization" with "up in the millions" of members.79 The committee was puzzled further by the fact that Kameny believed that there were a quarter-million homosexuals in the city - not because they doubted that there were so many, but because he didn't have each one's contact information. The investigators assumed, Johnson wrote, "that homosexuals were inherently drawn to the same clique and would somehow all be on the same mailing list. — Jesse Walker

Phi cang Saigon Tansonnhut"

"He puzzled at the meaning and smiled inwardly. The sign probably said, "Welcome and Affectionate Salutations to All Who Enter the Glorious Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Home of Seventh Air Force, Only Minutes from Beautiful Saigon." Or maybe not; he couldn't know. Maybe it read, "Welcome to the Dung Heap of Despair - Abandon Cheer, All Ye Who Enter. — Tony Taylor

Though Jones had formerly believed himself in the very prime of youth and vigor, his first encounter with Lady Bellaston both vexed and puzzled him. For though his own youthful appetites were quickly sated, hers were ravenous and almost beyond his power to satisfy. Her kisses and caresses were a source of inexpressible delight; yet when all was over it was he who collapsed into the most profound slumber. Early the next morning she took him shopping, her manner fresh and cheerful. Jones could not fathom her spritely behavior. And in spite of all his best endeavors, he could scarcely keep his eyes open. — Henry Fielding

The thing that surprised me and really puzzled me is that the job is really fun. Yahoo is a really fun place to work. — Marissa Mayer

Darla shook her head, a small smirk on her lips. "You're such a mom," she told Katherine.
Katherine stared at her, puzzled. "You're a mom, too," she said softly.
"No, I gave birth. That doesn't make me a mom. Not like you."
A look passed between the two women like none they had ever shared before. For a split second, Katherine felt a slight connection. "Well, you rest. I'll check on you later." She turned and left the room, a funny, unexplainable feeling inside her. — Deanna Lynn Sletten

What's more, you're loads better than you think you are."
"So why is it I get to thinking that way?" I puzzled.
"That's because you're only half-living." she said briskly. "The other half is still untapped somewhere. — Haruki Murakami

The only problem with the Angels' new image was that the outlaws themselves didn't understand it. It puzzled them to be treated as symbolic heroes by people with whom they had almost nothing in common. Yet they were gaining access to a whole reservoir of women, booze, drugs and new action
which they were eager to get their hands on, and symbolism be damned. But they could never get the hang of the role they were expected to play, and insisted on ad-libbing the lines. This fouled their channels of communication, which made them nervous ... and after a brief whirl on the hipster party circuit, all but a few decided it was both cheaper and easier, in the long run, to buy their own booze and hustle a less complicated breed of pussy. — Hunter S. Thompson

Throughout his life, Albert Einstein would retain the intuition and the awe of a child. He never lost his sense of wonder at the magic of nature's phenomena-magnetic fields, gravity, inertia, acceleration, light beams-which grown-ups find so commonplace. He retained the ability to hold two thoughts in his mind simultaneously, to be puzzled when they conflicted, and to marvel when he could smell an underlying unity. "People like you and me never grow old," he wrote a friend later in life. "We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born. — Walter Isaacson

all started at the Temple of Apollo In Delphi. One of his friends approached the oracle with the question: "Is anyone wiser than Socrates?" the answer was "No." Socrates was profoundly puzzled by this episode. He claimed to know — Plato

You're eating like a sparrow nowadays. You've hardly touched your food.' 'You give me so much. There are so many dishes.' 'Where so many? One dal, one fry, one vegetable dish, a bit of fish, that's it.' 'And you don't think that's a lot?' 'You've eaten like this all your life,' she said, baffled. 'Don't you agree we eat too much?' 'Who, you and I?' she asked, still puzzled. 'No, no, by "we" I mean all of us, everyone in our social and economic class. — Neel Mukherjee

I see myself as a citizen of the planet. Even as a child, I always found it mindless to root for your own team. I was puzzled by the fact that people said their own team was better than other teams simply because it was theirs. — Wallace Shawn

I am very puzzled by the fact that young people are getting infected again. They don't take precautions despite an enormous amount of information. It's like riding a race car at 200 kilometers an hour. Some people like the risk. — Luc Montagnier

I can remember Bertrand Russell telling me of a horrible dream. He was in the top floor of the University Library, about A.D. 2100. A library assistant was going round the shelves carrying an enormous bucket, taking down books, glancing at them, restoring them to the shelves or dumping them into the bucket. At last he came to three large volumes which Russell could recognize as the last surviving copy of Principia Mathematica. He took down one of the volumes, turned over a few pages, seemed puzzled for a moment by the curious symbolism, closed the volume, balanced it in his hand and hesitated.... — G.H. Hardy

The world is a very puzzling place. If you're not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else's mind. — Noam Chomsky

I like noise. It's always puzzled me why one of the goals of contemporary recording is to get rid of noise and to eliminate any element of a performance. — Moby

For a long time it puzzled me how something so expensive, so leading edge, could be so useless. And then it occurred to me that a computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a perfect match. — Bill Bryson

We tend to regard history as true and 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' as untrue. That's always puzzled me. — Tim O'Brien

Do you have a message for Master Corbin before you go?" the little vamp asked. "No," I said shortly. "Wait - yes. Tell him if he thinks giving me his private number will inspire me to make a booty call, he's sadly mistaken." The androgynous vamp gave me a puzzled look. "A booty call? You will call his buttocks on the telephone? I do not understand." I stifled a snicker. "You don't have to. Basically it means I'm not interested in fucking a vampire. — Evangeline Anderson

What's the first word that comes to mind when you think of him?"
"Soft." It was out of my mouth before I could reign the thought back in, and I felt the heat of embarrassment creep up my neck.
She cocked her head and gave me a puzzled look. "Soft?"
"I didn't mean soft." I bet Jamie did feel soft, thought. His long, coffee colored hair looked like silk. I bet it felt like silk, too. "I meant soft-spoken. — Madison Parker

He drank a good deal at times. But the alcohol did not seem to affect him. His stony expression never changed. But sometimes a strange, flashing glance from his cold eyes would rest upon Anna, full of some burning fierceness that was like hatred, and he would force her to drink with him, force her to swallow a little glassful of fiery spirit at a single gulp.
'I ought to shoot you, really,' he said to her once, in a dead voice. 'Conscientiously, it would be the best thing for me to do.'
She saw from the grave concentration on his face that his conscience did actually require him to kill her. And this puzzled her because she could not understand why her death should be a conscientious necessity. The thought of being shot did not seem to cause her any concern. — Anna Kavan

She settled into a sitting position, wincing. "Oh, my poor rear end. I hope you appreciate what I went through to get here."
Alain watched her anxiously. "You have hurt your ... "
"My butt. Yeah." She returned his gaze, puzzled. "I'll survive. Why are you blushing?"
"Blushing?" His face felt warm. What did that mean?
"Yes." Mari laughed. Does talking about my butt embarrass you? I'm sorry. It's nothing special."
"I ... " His face felt even warmer. "I think it is."
"You do, huh? Where have you been all my life?"
This time he gave her a mystified look. "I sent almost all of it inside a Mage Guild Hall. The one in Ihris. You know this."
Mari laughed again. — Jack Campbell

It may sometimes happen that a truth, an insight, which you have slowly and laboriously puzzled out by thinking for yourself could have easily have been found already written in a book: but it is a hundred times more valuable if you have arrived at it by thinking for yourself. For only then will it enter your thought system as an integral part and living member, be perfectly and firmly consistent with it and in accord with all its other consequences and conclusions, bear the hue, colour and stamp of your whole manner of thinking, and have arrived at just the moment it was needed ; thus it will stay firmly and forever lodged in your mind. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Shadow was amused, and a little puzzled, to realize that he was far more concerned about breaking the rules by climbing onto the carousel than he had been aiding and abetting this afternoon's bank robbery. — Neil Gaiman

In fact the Gods were as puzzled by all this as the wizards were, but they were powerless to do anything and in any case were engaged in an eons-old battle with the Ice Giants, who had refused to return the lawnmower. — Terry Pratchett

For the scientists, they're kind of puzzled and pleased that somebody finds their work interesting. It makes it fun for me. I feel like I've sort of turned over a stone that hasn't been turned over. — Mary Roach

He was already looking at their relationship through the lens of the past tense. It puzzled her, the ability of romantic love to mutate, how quickly a loved one could become a stranger. Where did the love go? Perhaps real love was familial, somehow, linked to blood, since love for children did not die as romantic love did. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

At the same time, we may not as a culture be fond of old-fashioned supernaturalism, but we certainly like spirituality in whatever form we can get it. I suspect that if anyone other than Jesus (Krishna, say, or Buddha) were suddenly put forward as being due for a second coming, millions in our postsecular society would embrace such a thing uncritically, leaving Enlightenment rationalism huffing and puffing in the rear. We are a puzzled and confused generation, embracing any and every kind of nonrationalism that may offer us a spiritual shot in the arm while lapsing back into rationalism (in particular, the old modernist critiques) whenever we want to keep traditional or orthodox Christianity at bay. — N. T. Wright

It can only be our familiarity with soap bubbles from our earliest recollections, causing us to accept their existence as a matter of course, that prevents most of us from being seriously puzzled as to why they can be blown at all. — Charles Vernon Boys

When you have made a thorough and reasonably long effort, to understand a thing, and still feel puzzled by it, stop, you will only hurt yourself by going on. — Lewis Carroll

But her mother had looked at her curiously, gravely, puzzled by this creature who seemed all contradictions - at one moment so hard, at another so gentle, gentle to tenderness, even. Anna had been stirred, as her child had been stirred, by the breath of the meadowsweet under the hedges; for in this they were one, the mother and daughter, having each in her veins the warm Celtic blood that takes note of such things - could they only have divined it, such simple things might have formed a link between them. — Radclyffe Hall

You're right. Many nurses nowadays don't like doing the things that nurses used to have to do. Changing sheets and collecting bedpans - that sort of thing. Nursing has moved on, Bertie.'
Bertie was puzzled. 'But if they don't do that,' he said, 'then who does? Do people have to tuck themselves into bed when they're in hospital?'
Irene was amused by this and raised her eyes again. 'Dear Bertie, no, not at all. They have other people now to do that sort of thing. There are other wome ... people who do that.' 'So they aren't nurses, Mummy?' asked Bertie. Irene waved a hand vaguely. 'No. They call them care assistants, or something like that. It's very important work.' 'So what do the nurses do then, Mummy? If they have somebody else to take the bedpans to the patients, what's left for the nurses to do? Do they do the things that doctors do? Can nurses take your tonsils out?' 'I think they'd like to,' said Irene. — Alexander McCall Smith

What has always puzzled me is the flexibility of God's word. For instance, Catholics can now eat meat on Fridays. And limbo has been abolished. How does this work? Who tells them? — Simon Hoggart

I've puzzled over the difficulty that students have with editing, and I think I've identified its source: It's their self-talk. We all talk to ourselves, inside our heads. That's what consciousness is. — Richard Rhodes

That she should so puzzled him that he even questioned his behavior, entertaining, albeit briefly, the idea that he might in some fashion be responsible for the apparition of his once loving wife, who had faithfully awaited his return from overseas, now calmly and purposefully blasting away, without visible remorse, in the general direction of his life and property. They — Richard Russo

Then in my mind's eye I see the bronze statue of the college Founder, the cold Father symbol, his hands outstretched in the breathtaking gesture of lifting a veil that flutters in hard, metallic folds above the face of a kneeling slave; and I am standing puzzled, unable to decide whether the veil is really being lifted, or lowered more firmly in place; whether I am witnessing a revelation or a more efficient blinding. — Ralph Ellison

how will I know which one he is?' I asked puzzled by how serious they all were, like he was some ax murdrer or something.

Suranne,
Chapter 1 — Shanice Williams

He chuckled into my hair, enjoying this. I loved him terribly just then, how he puzzled through obscure scholarship and reveled in ideas, never mind that he'd called my mind hell. — Rachel Hartman

to follow one's instincts with due regard to the policeman round the corner, had not acted very well there: it was because Cronshaw had done this that he had made such a lamentable failure of existence. It seemed that the instincts could not be trusted. Philip was puzzled, and he asked himself what rule of life was there, if that one was useless, and why people acted in one way rather than in another. They acted according to their emotions, but their emotions might be good or bad; it seemed just a chance whether they led to triumph or disaster. Life seemed an inextricable confusion. Men hurried hither and thither, urged by forces they knew not; and the purpose of it all escaped them; they seemed to hurry just for hurrying's sake. — William Somerset Maugham

For me, Mama's cabinet had been full of mysteries and secrets to be puzzled out, like an adventure. For them it had been full of memories. And I had broken all of them. — Stephanie Burgis

Simon stepped forward and clapped him on the shoulder. "Nothing better than making a maid happy, is there?"
"Aye, there most assuredly is."
Simon cocked a puzzled brow.
"Skewering my meddlesome brother would definitely be better."
Simon laughed. "Then I'd best go pack so that I won't be directly in your sight for the next few minutes."
"You do that, Simon, and while you're at it, make sure to find your common sense and bring it along as well. — Kinley MacGregor

The first of the telegrams arrived shortly after noon, and Jeeves brought it in with the before-luncheon snifter. It was from Aunt Dahlia, operating from Market Snodsbury, a small town of sorts a mile or two along the main road as it leaves her country seat.
It ran as follows:

Come at once. Travers.

And when I say it puzzled me like the dickens, I am understating it, if anything. As mysterious a communication, I considered, as was ever flashed over the wires. I studied it in a profound reverie for the best part of two dry Martinis and a dividend. I read it backwards. I read it forwards. As a matter of fact, I have a sort of recollection of even smelling it. But it still baffled me. — P.G. Wodehouse

It seems as if we can't go right, or do right, or be righted,' said Toby. 'I hadn't much schooling, myself, when I was young; and I can't make out whether we have any business on the face of the earth, or not. Sometimes I think we must have a little; and sometimes I think we must be intruding. I get so puzzled sometimes that I am not even able to make up my mind whether there is any good at all in us, or whether we are born bad. We seem to do dreadful things; we seem to give a deal of trouble; we are always being complained of and guarded against. One way or another, we fill the papers. Talk of a New Year!' said Toby, mournfully. — Charles Dickens

When I go out, people look at me with a puzzled expression on their faces thinking, "You're Jackie Chan?" When people stare at me, it makes me uncomfortable. More and more I find that I just stay in my hotel when I am working. — Jackie Chan

There is a newly coined word in the English language for the moment when the person we're with whips out their BlackBerry or answers that cell phone, and all of a sudden we don't exist. The word is 'pizzled': it's a combination of puzzled and pissed off. — Daniel Goleman

He had been taught as a child that Urras was a festering mass of inequity, iniquity, and waste. But all the people he met, and all the people he saw, in the smallest country village, were well dressed, well fed, and contrary to his expectations, industrious. They did not stand about sullenly waiting to be ordered to do things. Just like Anaresti, they were simply busy getting things done. It puzzled him. He had assumed that if you removed a human being's natural incentive to work
his initiative, his spontaneous creative energy
and replaced it with external motivation and coercion, he would become a lazy and careless worker. But no careless workers kept those lovely farmlands, or made the superb cars and comfortable trains. The lure and compulsion of profit was evidently a much more effective replacement of the natural initiative than he had been led to believe. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Dementia. Ruth puzzled over the diagnosis: How could such a beautiful-sounding word apply to such a destructive disease? It was a name befitting a goddess: Dementia, who caused her sister Demeter to forget to turn winter into spring. — Amy Tan

Have ye no good points?" said Wee Mad Arthur desperately. Rob Anybody looked puzzled. "We kind of thought them is our good points, but if you want to get picky, we never steal from them as has nae money, we has hearts of gold, although maybe - okay, mostly - somebody else's gold, and we did invent the deep-fried stoat. That must count for something." "How is that a good point?" said Arthur. "Weel, it saves some other poor devil having tae do it. It's what ye might call a taste explosion; ye take a mouthful, taste it, and then there is an explosion." Despite himself, Wee Mad Arthur was grinning. "Have you boys got no shame?" Rob Anybody matched him grin for grin. "I couldna say," he replied, "but if we have, it probably belonged tae somebody else. — Terry Pratchett

Why are you here?"
"Oh - I came to tell the chieftain we're going to die." The girl said it quickly and with the same casual indifference as if she were announcing that the sun sets in the evening.
Persephone narrowed her eyes. "Excuse me? What did you say? Who's going to die?"
"All of us."
"All of whom?"
"Us." The girl looked puzzled, but this time Persephone wasn't certain if it was the tattoos or not.
"You and I?"
Suri sighed. "Yes - you, me, the funny man with the horn at the gate, everyone. — Michael J. Sullivan

Time is a funny thing. I was always puzzled with the way a single day could stretch itself out to the point of eternity in your mind, all while years melted down into the fraction of a second. — Gloria Naylor

From CATS ARE KIND
I saw a dog pursuing automobiles;
On and on he sped.
I was puzzled by this;
I accosted the dog.
'If you catch one,' I said
'What will you do with it?'
'Dumb cat,' he cried,
And ran on. — Henry N. Beard

At night too, she puzzled the mystery of her desperate need of kindness. As other girls prayed for handsomeness in a lover, or for wealth, or for power, or for poetry, she had prayed fervently: let him be kind. — Anais Nin

I am puzzled by people today who, after moralizing about the need for cooperation and goodwill and love-thy-neighbor-as-thyself, suddenly invoke the most primitive, barbarous motivations for any kind of progress. — Murray Bookchin

When I was girl by Nilus stream
I watched the deserts stars arise;
My lover, he who dreamed the Sphinx,
Learned all his dreaming from eyes.
I bore in Greece a burning name,
And I have been in Italy
Madonna to a painter-lad,
And mistress to a Medici.
And have you heard (and I have heard)
Of puzzled men with decorous mien,
Who judged - the wench knew far too much -
And burnt her on the Salem green? — Adelaide Crapsey

Now then, don't give it another thought, today it's your turn, tomorrow it will be mine, we never know what might lie in store for us, You're right, who would have thought, when I left the house this morning, that something as dreadful as this was about to happen. He was puzzled that they should still be at a standstill, Why aren't we moving, he asked, The light is on red, replied the other. From now on he would no longer know when the light was red. — Jose Saramago

Steve has a reality distortion field." When Hertzfeld looked puzzled, Tribble elaborated. "In his presence, reality is malleable. He can convince anyone of practically anything. It wears off when he's not around, but it makes it hard to have realistic schedules. — Walter Isaacson

Look, don't you understand?" shouted Arthur. He pointed at Prosser. "That man wants to knock my house down!" Ford glanced at him, puzzled. "Well he can do it while you're away, can't he?" he asked. "But I don't want him to!" "Ah. — Douglas Adams

Her constant phrase, "Go with God", had puzzled me a good deal. Suddenly it became clear. It was a revelation - acceptance. It filled me with joy. Accept life, the world, Spirit, God, call it what you will, and all else will follow. — Jennifer Worth

My lord," she asked softly, "have you ever wanted someone you couldn't have?"
"Not yet. But one can always hope."
She responded with a puzzled smile. "You hope to fall in love someday with someone you can't have? Why?"
"It would be an interesting experience."
"So would falling off a cliff," she said sardonically. "But I think one would rather learn about it from secondhand knowledge."
-Lillian & Sebastian St. Vincent — Lisa Kleypas

She knew she had changed too, but not as they had changed, and it puzzled her. She sat and watched them and she felt herself an alien among them, as alien and lonely as if she had come from another world, speaking a language they did not understand and she not understanding theirs. — Margaret Mitchell

Bear with me on this, Evanlyn. I know you're anxious about Horace."
WIll was a little puzzled by Halt's words. "No more anxious than the rest of us, surely," he said.
Halt turned away and raised his eyebrows as his gaze met Selethen's. Sometimes, he thought, his former apprentice could be remarkably slow on the uptake. He saw the Arridi's slow nod of understanding.

~Halt & Will about Evanlyn and Horace — John Flanagan

Thus, neither having the clue to the other's secret, they were respectively puzzled at what each revealed, and awaited new knowledge of each other's character and moods without attempting to pry into each other's history. — Thomas Hardy

What did it matter, since it was unreality, all of it, the pain and desire, the beginning and the end? There was no reality except this solitary road, this quite solitary road, along which on went rather puzzled, rather tired ... — H.G.Wells

We are puzzled and bewildered whenever we see suffering in this world because we have become accustomed to the mercy and the long-suffering of God. Amazing grace is no longer amazing to us. — R.C. Sproul

Father looked puzzled. My witty repartee was completely lost on him. — Alan Bradley

The great and complicated political reasons for secession, thundered about in Congress and in the state legislatures, were not their reasons, which were more like those expressed by a captive Confederate soldier, who was not a slaveholder, to his puzzled Union captors. "I'm fighting because you're down here," he said.30 — S.C. Gwynne

I thought you were bringing me back. Forever."
He looked puzzled. "Why would I do that, when I waited almost two centuries to find you?"
As he spoke, he reached out to take me by the waist and pull me against him, then lowered his mouth to mine and kissed me with a thoroughness that left no doubt in my mind that he had no intention of abandoning me anywhere.
"John," I said a little breathlessly, when he let me up for air. "Maybe it would be better if you waited for me out here."
"No," he said simply, and took my hand and began walking me towards the French doors to my mother's home. — Meg Cabot

Seriously, Palta ... " He was honestly puzzled, "I haven't got a clue what you're talking about. What about your ears is supposed to be so bizarre?"
"Um ... You'd have to be blind to miss them," I replied sarcastically. "If you're not, you will be when you poke your eye out on one of them. — M.A. George

There is required for the composition of a great commander not only massive common sense and reasoning power, not only imagination, but also an element of legerdemain, an original and sinister touch, which leaves the enemy puzzled as well as beaten. — Winston Churchill

Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, skeptical, puzzled and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit; and not a series of unconnected acts. Through past prejudice, his duty becomes part of his nature. — Edmund Burke