40 Puzzle Quotes to Inspire You

People around the world have found puzzles to be fun, to entertain and, well, puzzle. The Japanese developed logic puzzles like Sudoku and Great Britain invented jigsaw puzzles in the 18th century.

With so many people enjoying puzzles for centuries, it should come as no surprise that philosophers, writers, and other individuals have penned inspiring words about puzzles.

Here is a list of 40 puzzle quotes to inspire your mind.  

Puzzle Quotes

1. “There are no extra pieces in the universe. Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill, and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle.” ― Deepak Chopra

2. “Each person is an enigma. You’re a puzzle not only to yourself but also to everyone else, and the great mystery of our time is how we penetrate this puzzle.” ― Theodore Zeldin

3. “The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity.” ― Douglas Horton

4. “The solution often turns out more beautiful than the puzzle.” ― Richard Dawkins

5. “Each one of us fulfills a piece of a larger puzzle.” ― Eric McCormack

6. “I wanna make a jigsaw puzzle that’s 40,000 pieces. And when you finish it, it says ‘go outside.’” ― Demetri Martin

7. “The brain is the most complex, challenging scientific puzzle we have ever tried to decode.” ― Paul Allen

8. “I probably wouldn’t do anything differently if I had to do it again. Every little thing that happens to you, good and bad, becomes a little piece of the puzzle of who you become. Every successful person you read about ― Warren Buffett, Bill Gates ― they all say pretty much the same thing. ‘Do what you love.’ I know I did.” ― David Foster

9. “For me, writing a novel is like solving a puzzle. But I don’t intend my novels as puzzles. I intend them as invitations to dance.” ― Mohsin Hamid

10. “Every day is sort of a jigsaw puzzle. You have to make sure that you’re putting the most important things first.” ― Julia Hartz

11. “This idea of, there’s a locked door; how do you open it? You don’t necessarily care what’s behind it; you’re just more excited about opening the lock … It’s not about finding the treasure; it’s more about defeating the puzzle.” ― Harper Reed

12. “The experience of life that you and I have is pretty much a jigsaw puzzle in the box: Day-to-day experiences of disconnected pieces that don’t seem to justify the efforts we make each day.” ― Robert Adams

13. “A good puzzle, it’s a fair thing. Nobody is lying. It’s very clear, and the problem depends just on you.” ― Erno Rubik

14. “The nice thing about doing a crossword puzzle is, you know there is a solution.” ― Stephen Sondheim

15. “Whenever you start working on something, you have to go about it with the underlying assumption that this puzzle has a solution, right? If you started a jigsaw puzzle not knowing whether all the pieces were in the box, it would not be a fun exercise.” ― Boyan Slat

16. “Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.” ― Lewis Carroll

17. “The truth is, those who diligently seek to learn of Christ eventually will come to know Him. They will personally receive a divine portrait of the Master, although it most often comes in the form of a puzzle ― one piece at a time.” ― Dieter F. Uchtdorf

18. “I was always a big fan of ‘Quincy,’ and I loved the idea of puzzle solving.” ― Nina Tassler

19. “Music is a lot more like solving an intricate puzzle with moments of pure, random creative bliss … whereas painting is much more purely random creative bliss with moments of problem solving.” ― Brandon Boyd

20. “So now it is time to disassemble the parts of the jigsaw puzzle or to piece another one together, for I find that, having come to the end of my story, my life is just beginning.” ― Conrad Veidt

21. “The questions we don’t ask become the puzzles we don’t solve.” ― A.J. Darkholme

22. “That’s another hallmark of truth, is that it snaps things together. People write to me all the time and say it’s as if things were coming together in my mind. It’s like the Platonic idea that all learning was remembering. You have a nature, and when you feel that nature articulated, it’s like the act of snapping the puzzle pieces together.” ― Jordan Peterson

23. “Thinkers aren’t limited by what they know, because they can always increase what they know. Rather they’re limited by what puzzles them, because there’s no way to become curious about something that doesn’t puzzle you.” ― Daniel Quinn

24. “We perceive the world through the rear window of life, observe all the puzzles and little pieces of our existence and assemble them in a comprehensive pattern. This allows us to reassess and evaluate our world view. (‘Waiting for the pieces to fall into place.’)” ― Erik Pevernagie

25. “Not every puzzle is intended to be solved. Some are in place to test your limits. Others are, in fact, not puzzles at all…” ― Vera Nazarian

26. “Every mystery ever solved had been a puzzle from the dawn of the human species right up until someone solved it.” ― Eliezer Yudkowsky

27. “There are people like this wherever you go. They are part of the same mystery as you are, but you can’t quite tell how you fit together. The world is a puzzle, and we cannot solve it alone.” ― Lemony Snicket

28. “When broken people try to complete each other it is like forcing unfit puzzle pieces together because they are somewhat similar.” ― Lidia Longorio

29. “Well, listen, anger doesn’t get anything done, so you have to find out: How do you make it work? That’s why I was always maniacal about transforming every problem into a puzzle which I can solve. I can solve a puzzle — a problem just stresses me out.” ― Quincy Jones

30. “Dare to ask questions and seek answers to the puzzles of life.” ― Lailah Gifty Akita

31. “I like a puzzle, as you know. So does every scholar worth his salt. It’s the reward of the business, to look history in the eye and say, ‘I know who you are. You can’t fool me.’”― Elizabeth Kostova

32. “I’m not a puzzle piece to someone else’s puzzle, I’m my own puzzle that is still growing. I’m unsure of what it’ll look like when it’s done, but it will be uniquely me.” ― Macy Niichel

33. “The hardest thing to do at times is to put our problems in the right perspective. Every problem may not exactly be a bad problem; some problems are solutions to bigger problems. Like solving a puzzle-it is advised we don’t get used to guessing; if you don’t have a clue, just ask for help and move up the next level.” ― Asuni LadyZeal

34. “If the pieces do not fit into your puzzle.Try a different picture.” ― Cass van Krah

35. “The problem is that we always look for the missing piece of the puzzle instead of finding a place for the one in our hand.” ― Alina Radoi

36. “Puzzles are like songs.A good puzzle can give you all the pleasure of being duped that a mystery story can. It has surface innocence, surprise, the revelation of a concealed meaning, and the catharsis of solution.” ― Stephen Sondheim

37. “Sometimes the hardest pieces of a puzzle to assemble, are the ones missing from the box.” ― Dixie Waters

38. “I like to be surprised by life; it’s a good thing to search for the puzzle pieces.” ― Josh McDermitt

39. “Finding your style is like putting puzzle pieces together.” ― Lara Spencer

40. “A puzzle with a solution is a game. A puzzle without a solution is a work of art.” ― Marty Rubin

41. “Unraveling the solution to a mystery story or to a puzzle seems to produce a kind of ‘mental catharsis,’ since people typically feel a sense of relief from suspense when they find the answer to the mystery or puzzle. For some truly mysterious reason, human beings seem to need this kind of catharsis on a regular bases ― as the popularity of mysteries and puzzles across the world and across time attests.” ― Ronald A Knox