Quotes & Sayings About Puzzlement

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

After that, the Jinni was rarely without tobacco and rolling papers. He appreciated the taste of the tobacco, and the warmth of the smoke in his body. But to the puzzlement of all who stopped him on the street to ask, he never carried matches. — Helene Wecker

Everything Tolstoy wrote is precious, but I found this final statement of the truth about life as he had come to understand it particularly beautiful and moving. 'That is what I have wanted to say to you, my brothers. Before I died.' So he concludes, giving one a vivid sense of the old man, pen in hand and bent over the paper, his forehead wrinkled into a look of puzzlement very characteristic of him, as though he were perpetually wondering how others could fail to see what was to him so clear - that the law of love explained all mysteries and invalidated all other laws. — Malcolm Muggeridge

The young readers I have interacted with carry old concerns repackaged in the skin of a new generation: puzzlement over continuous national moral failings, contradictions with the elders, nostalgia for a nonexistent Kenyan past. — Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

She shook her head in puzzlement.
'You're very strange,' she said.
'No, I'm very ordinary,' said Arthur,'but some very strange things have happened to me. You could say I'm more differed from than differing. — Douglas Adams

When word came that Keith had died of cancer, Abel was astonished. That astonishment had to do with death, with the wiping out of a person, with the puzzlement that the man was simply gone. — Elizabeth Strout

[Theodore] Roosevelt had long ago discovered that the more provincial the supplicants, the less able were they to understand that their need was not unique: that he was not yearning to travel two thousand miles on bad trains to support the reelection campaign of a county sheriff, or to address the congregation of a new chapel in a landscape with no trees. His refusal, no matter how elaborately apologetic, was received more often in puzzlement than anger. Imaginatively challenged folks, for whom crossing a state line amounted to foreign travel, could not conceive that the gray-blue eyes inspecting them had, over the past year, similarly scrutinized Nandi warriors, Arab mullahs, Magyar landowners, French marshals, Prussian academics, or practically any monarch or minister of consequence in Europe -- not to mention the maquettes in Rodin's studio, and whatever dark truths flickered in the gaze of dying lions.

From COLONEL ROOSEVELT, p. 104. — Edmund Morris

She followed the pleasure where it led. She had no weight, no name, no thoughts, no history. Then came a burst of phosphorescence, as though a firework had discharged behind her eyes, and it was over. She felt quiet and warm. For the first conscious moment of her life, her mind was free from wonder, free from worry, free from work or puzzlement. Then, from the middle of that marvelous furred stillness, a thought took shape, took hold, took over. I shall have to do this again. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The greatest achievements in the science of this [twentieth] century are themselves the sources of more puzzlement than human beings have ever experienced. Indeed, it is likely that the twentieth century will be looked back at as the time when science provided the first close glimpse of the profundity of human ignorance. We have not reached solutions; we have only begun to discover how to ask questions. — Lewis Thomas

What these people were trying to create or re-create here in this new world is beyond me. I can't put myself in their minds or their hearts, but I can sympathize with their struggle for an identity, with their puzzlement, which has troubled Americans from the very beginning - Who are we, where do we fit in, where are we going? — Nelson DeMille

I am James Burlough, the Earl of Deerhurst.' The earl's pleasant smile capsized into not-quite-polite puzzlement. 'And who might you be, sir? — Suzanne Enoch

I would like permission to fetch a note from my mother, sir' Ridcully sighed. 'Rincewind, you once informed me, to my everlasting puzzlement, that you never knew your mother because she ran away before you were born. Distinctly remember writing it down in my diary. Would you like another try?' 'Permission to go and find my mother?' — Terry Pratchett

And at the end of the night, he stared down at her in puzzlement. He didn't know which facet of her he liked better. The siren in black satin that made his cock and fangs ache or this angel with her bright red hair spread across his pillow - who made his chest ache. She — Kresley Cole

For the last fifty years we've been supporting right-wing governments, and that is a puzzlement to me ... I don't understand what there is in the American character ... that almost automatically, even when we have a liberal President, we support fascist dictatorships or are tolerant towards them. — Michael Parenti

American civilization, from its beginnings, had combined a dogmatic confidence in the future with a naive puzzlement over what the future might bring. — Daniel J. Boorstin

Then she laughed. It was almost a racking laugh. It shook her as the wind shakes a tree. I thought there was puzzlement in it, not exactly surprise, but as if a new idea had been added to something already known and it didn't fit. Then I thought that was too much to get out of a laugh. — Raymond Chandler

A fourth door, and a fifth, on and on until you reach a thirteenth, a little locked door no bigger than a shoe." The children lean forward. "And then?" "Behind the thirteenth door" - the guide flourishes one of his impossibly wrinkled hands - "is the Sea of Flames." Puzzlement. Fidgeting. "Come now. You've never heard of the Sea of Flames? — Anthony Doerr

Fred, shy?" Jess frowned in puzzlement.

"Lacking in confidence, I'd say, which he covers up with all this comedy stuff," suggested Luke.

Jess thought about this suggestion for a moment or two. "You know," she concluded, "ever since I dumped him, I've been waiting for him to do something amazing to get back into my good books. You know, take the initiative or something. Or even apologize properly."

"You could have a long wait," said Luke, smiling ruefully. "I think he's a passive character - he bounces off people; he reacts to situations instead of taking the initiative." ...

"I see," mused Jess. "But I kind of hate that in him, though - being so passive."

"But you don't hate Fred, do you? It's just part of his personality. And people do change sometimes. But everybody's got faults. — Sue Limb

As we passed, I leaned over and asked, "Just out of curiosity, you don't allow pets. Am I right?"
She seemed confused and looked at Mr. Kadam, but shook her head no.
"Great. Just checking." I smiled back at her. Mr. Kadam titled his head in puzzlement but said nothing.
He must think I'm off my rocker. I grinned and followed him to the elevator. — Colleen Houck

You've acquired a pet, archangel. When did this happen?" There's puzzlement in his voice, as if it's normal for Beliel to know of Raffe's companions.
"I'm not anyone's pet."
"I met her tonight at the aerie," says Raffe. "She's been following me around. She means nothing."
Beliel snorts. "Funny, I didn't ask if she meant anything to you." He looks me up and down, taking in every detail. "Scrawny. But serviceable." He saunters toward me. — Susan Ee

The mechanism thus created periodically acts out post-modern notions of cosmology and then deconstructs itself. It has met with great admiration and no little puzzlement. — Michael Swanwick

Readers should not be loaded with more information and guidance than a lively mind needs
puzzlement can be accepted, but insulting clarity is fatal to a poem. — William Stafford

We look about in puzzlement at our world, with a sense of unease and disquiet. We think of ourselves as scholars in arcane liturgies, single men trapped in worlds beyond our devising. The truth is far simpler: there are things in the darkness beneath us that wish us harm. — Neil Gaiman

Philosophical argument, trying to get someone to believe something whether he wants to believe it or not, is not, I have held, a nice way to behave towards someone; also it does not fit the original motivation for studying or entering philosophy. That motivation is puzzlement, curiousity, a desire to understand, not a desire to produce uniformity of belief. Most people do not want to become thought-police. The philosophical goal of explanation rather than proof not only is morally better, it is more in accord with one's philosophical motivation. — Robert Nozick

All history teaches us that these questions that we think the pressing ones will be transmuted before they are answered, that they will be replaced by others, and that the very process of discovery will shatter the concepts that we today use to describe our puzzlement. — J. Robert Oppenheimer

F you could forget mortality ... You could really believe that time is circular, and not linear and progressive as our culture is bent on proving. Seen in geological perspective, we are fossils in the making, to be buried and eventually exposed again for the puzzlement of creatures of later eras. — Wallace Stegner

I remember laughing at that moment, and I remember my son frowning at me in puzzlement. What I remember best of all, though, was the sudden certainty that the gods were with me, that they would fight for me, that my sword would be their sword. 'We're going to win,' I told my son. I felt as if Odin or Thor had touched me. I had never felt more alive and never felt more certain. I knew there would be no more mistakes and that this was no dream.
I had come to Bebbanburg and Bebbanburg would be mine. — Bernard Cornwell

He looked at their shabby clothes in puzzlement.
"We were traveling anonymously for safety - " explained the magus.
"But surely - "
" - and then we were robbed on the road."
"Ah," said the king, "the danger in being anonymous. — Megan Whalen Turner

This is a source of much embarrassment and puzzlement to me about myself. (It) probably requires psychoanalysis of why there is this aberration in my life. The rest of my conduct, I think you will agree, is not reflective of my driving record, and I apologized for it. — Zulima Farber

He stared at me in complete puzzlement, And while I'm committing incest for you is there anything else you'd like? Maybe a side-order of bestiality? — Candice Raquel Lee

What do you want to know, my pretty?" Gordoc asked, his expression one of puzzlement. "Do you want me to scare Merl off--thump him for you? Just tell him your Uncle Gordoc will have words with him if he offends you."

"No, no, I don't mean that." Tashi smiled. "He's not insulted me--at least, not by Eastern standards, I suppose." She wrinkled her nose.

"What's he done?" growled Ramil.

"Well, first there's the gifts--flowers and jewelry, mainly. What should I say when he gives me things?"

"Thank you' usually does the trick," said Gordoc — Julia Golding

Which grave are we in?" she said.
"The oldest." She felt Eddie's puzzlement.
"That can't be possible. He looks like he was just buried."
"There must be something at work in the chemistry of the island that's preserving his body. It's like the incorruptibles, bodies that weren't preserved in any special way that don't decay. Catholic saints like Bernadette and Padre Pio are said not to have decomposed even though they died a long, long time ago. Environmental factors can cause a kind of mummification."
Jessica said, or thought, "This is bizarre. I'm getting a lesson on mummification while in the coffin of a dead man. — Hunter Shea

A human being, any human being at all, has so perishingly few chances to stay right there, to let go of time and fall into the moment. And to love someone without measure, explode with passion ... A few times when we are children, maybe, for those of us who are allowed to be ... But after that? How many breaths are we allowed to take beyond the confines of ourselves? How many pure emotions make us cheer out loud without a sense of shame? How many chances do we get to be blessed by amnesia? All passion is childish, it's banal and naive, it's nothing we learn, it's instinctive, and so it overwhelms us ... Overturns us ... It bears us away in a flood ... All other emotions belong to the earth, but passion inhabits the universe. That is the reason why passion is worth something. Not for what it gives us, but for what it demands that we risk - our dignity, the puzzlement of others in their condescending shaking heads ... — Fredrik Backman

Right," I said, and turned to David. "How do you feel about getting married tomorrow?"

I had no idea Djinn could look so blank. Venna turned to David and said, with the perfect blend of alarm and puzzlement, "Are you sure she isn't insane?"

David continued with the blank look for a few more seconds, and then the light dawned warm in his eyes, and he slowly smiled.

"Actually," he said, "I'm fairly certain she is, and that is exactly why I'm marrying her. — Rachel Caine

Ah yes, a great victory, this 'sport'. I am sure El Toro appreciates the applause

Jumping in the Puddles of Life — Loretta Livingstone

Where was I going? I puzzled and wondered about it til I actually enjoyed the puzzlement and wondering. — Carl Sandburg

Being found out, that's not the worst part, Harry now realizes. The anger, the pain, all the things that will inevitably follow this moment, they're just the fallout. This is the worst moment, the flash point, the cataclysm. For as Harry holds the eyes of his wife, he sees confusion in them--genuine puzzlement--and this is the deepest blow: the realization that until this moment it could not possibly have occurred to her that he would lie to her. But, of course, she doesn't know about all the little lies that preceded this grand one, the painstaking edifice of deceit that's about to collapse. He has hurled a brick through her trust, and although he may spend the rest of his life collecting every last shard, massaging the creaky, fractured pane back into a whole, it will always be warped, irregular, distorting the view on both sides. — Mark Sarvas

Reparations," said Jem very suddenly, setting down the pen he was holding.
Will looked at him in puzzlement. "Is this a game? We just blurt out whatever word comes next to mind? In that case mine is 'genuphobia'. It means an unreasonable fear of knees."
"What's the word for a perfectly reasonable fear of annoying idiots?" inquired Jessamine. — Cassandra Clare

Every person's story contains chapters of pain and loss, victory and defeat, love and hate, pride and prejudice, courage and fear, faith and self-distrust, charity and kindness, selfishness and jealously. Every person's story also contains folios of hopefulness and truthfulness, deceit and despair, action and change, passion and compassion, excitement and boredom, birth and creation, mutation and defect, generation and preservation, delusions and illusions, imagination and fantasy, bafflement and puzzlement. What makes a person's selfsame story unique is how he or she organizes the pure and impure forces that comprise them, how they respond to internal and external crisis, if they act in a safeguarding and humble manner, or lead a self-seeking and destructive existence. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Elvi blinked in puzzlement as Murtry left. "Is he mad at me?" "Sweetie," Amos said, clapping her on the back, "that just means you're not an asshole. — James S.A. Corey

Somehow, I cannot see anyone describing me as gracious, loving, and happy." He frowned at his sandwich as if in puzzlement. "You are loving," Anna replied staunchly, though she hadn't exactly planned for those words to leave her mouth. "Now that is beyond surprising." The earl eyed her in the deepening shadows. "How do you conclude such a thing, Mrs. Seaton?" "You have endless patience with your family, my lord," she began. "You escort your sisters everywhere; you dance attendance on them and their hordes of friends at every proper function; you harry and hound the duke so his wild starts are not the ruination of his duchy. You force yourself to tend to mountains of business which you do not enjoy, so your family may be safe and secure all their days." "That is business," the earl said, looking nonplussed that his first sandwich had disappeared, until Anna handed him a second. — Grace Burrowes

Queen Alyss, my guards have discovered something you should see."
Her face had relaxed at the sight of him, but her brow at once contracted, her lips thinned with tension.
We've found evidence of suspicious activity in the palace," he said.
What sort of activity?"
You might want to step this way and see for youself. I apologize in advance for you having to set foot in a gaurdsman's quaters."
He led her into his rooms. The boyish portrait of Sir Justice, the fire crystals in the hearth, the elegantly arrayed table: Alyss blinked in puzzlement.
What is all this?"
My best guess, You Majesty, is that it's breakfast, but I can't be sure until we taste it. — Frank Beddor

God sure hadn't done His menfolk any favors when He's made women such a puzzlement. — Regina Jennings

On the opening day of law school at Yale, I always counsel my first-year students never to support a law they are not willing to kill to enforce. Usually they greet this advice with something between skepticism and puzzlement, until I remind them that the police go armed to enforce the will of the state, and if you resist, they might kill you. — Stephen L. Carter

He had a theory that musicians are incredibly complex, and know far less than other artists what they want and what they are; that they puzzle themselves as well as their friends; that their psychology is a modern development, and has not yet been understood. — E. M. Forster

Each day, the moon's gravitational field tugs at the earth as it rotates underneath. At CERN, this tiny stress caused the total length of the LEP tunnel to stretch and contract by about a millimeter (one-twenty-fifth of an inch) every day. Not such a big deal in a seventeen-mile-long beam pipe, but enough to cause a tiny fluctuation in the energy of the electrons and positrons - one that was easily detectable by the high-precision instruments. After some initial puzzlement at the daily energy variations, the CERN physicists quickly figured out what was going on. — Sean Carroll

History teacher Bob Alston's expertise late not in his sweeping knowledge of the topic but in his ability to pick after a tumble, to get a fix on what he does not know, and to generate a roadmap to guide his new learning. He was an expert at cultivating puzzlement it was Alston's ability to stand back from first impressions, to question his quick leaps of mind, to keep track of his questions that together pointed him in the direction of new learning. — Sam Wineburg

I consider it a shame that most contemporary American writing seems informed more by Hemingway, the hero of adolescent boys of all ages and genders, than by the sui generis genius of letters, Faulkner. A phalanx of books about boredom in the Midwest is lauded (where the Midwest lies is a source of constant puzzlement to me, somewhere near Iowa, I presume), as are books about unexplored angst in New Jersey or couples unable to communicate in Connecticut. It was Camus who asserted that American novelists are the only ones who think they need not be intellectuals. — Rabih Alameddine

Identity confusion is defined by the SCID-D as a subjective feeling of uncertainty, puzzlement, or conflict about one's own identity. Patients who report histories of childhood trauma characteristically describe themes of ongoing inner struggle regarding their identity; of inner battles for survival; or other images of anger, conflict, and violence. P13 — Marlene Steinberg

And of course Charlotte hasn't eaten a bit of dinner," Henry said, getting up. "I'll go see if Bridget can't make her up a plate of cold chicken. As for the rest of you-" He paused for a moment, as if he were about to give them an order-send them to bed, perhaps, or back to the library to do more research. The moment passed, and a look of puzzlement crossed his face. "Blast it, I can't remember what I was going to say," he announced, and vanished into the kitchen. — Cassandra Clare

When she caught him staring, he would even more artlessly look down at the food on his plate with a show of puzzlement, as if he kept forgetting what supper was and how it was supposed to work. — Michael Chabon

I thought she was going to spit in it, which was the only reason anybody in Maycomb held out his hand: it was a time-honored method of sealing oral contracts. Wondering what bargain we had made, I turned to the class for an answer, but the class looked back at me in puzzlement. — Harper Lee

Puzzlement and doubt are, however, already crimes in the totalitarian state. The mind that is open for questions is open for dissent. In the totalitarian regime the doubting, inquisitive, and imaginative mind has to be suppressed. The totalitarian slave is only allowed to memorize, to salivate when the bell rings. — Joost Meerloo

Skepticism is essential to the quest for knowledge, for it is in the seedbed of puzzlement that genuine inquiry takes root. Without skepticism, we may remain mired in unexamined belief systems that are accepted as sacrosanct yet have no factual basis in reality. — Paul Kurtz

Science, not religion, has taught me my most useful values, among them intellectual honesty. It is better to go without answers than to accept those that merely resolve puzzlement. — B.F. Skinner

As long as you know that the permission to ask does not include the right to get an answer. — Pawan Mishra

I do not know how you have done this to me. I thought that if I returned the help you had given me that I would be free of the inexplicable influence you have over me. But it does not seem to be working, and you say you cannot break the thread."
Mari realized that her mouth had fallen open as she stared at Mage Alain. "Are you serious?"
"What would I be if not serious?"
"You're saying that I put a spell on you that controls your thoughts and actions?"
"Why else am I here?" The Mage asked.
"Because it was the right thing to do!"
"The ... what? I am still uncertain about what right thing means - " the trace of puzzlement had retired to him.
"Listen ... Mage Alain! I don't ... put spells on boys! Or men! Or anybody! I have no idea why you think that you are thinking about me, but I assure you that it has nothing to do with me thinking about you or making you think that you want to think about me! — Jack Campbell

I was just thrilled to get the gig to begin with. Ten years later to still have it is not only thrilling but also somewhat of a puzzlement. — Al Roker

She saw the beginning of puzzlement cross his face, and then there was an explosion and the door of the room blew open in a shower of splinters.
Magnus strode in, looking hectic, his black hair sticking up and his clothes rumpled.
Jace leaned away from Clary, but only slightly. His eyes were narrowed. "I would say 'Don't you knock?' but it seems evident you don't," he said. "We are, however, busy."
Magnus waved a dismissive hand. "I've walked in on your ancestors doing worse," he said. "Besides, it's an emergency."
"Magnus," said Clary, "this better not be about the flowers. Or the cake."
Magnus scoffed. "I said an emergency. This is an engagement party, not the Battle of Normandy."
"The battle of what?" said Jace, who was not up on his mundane history. — Cassandra Clare