When you are acting, you are just one piece of the puzzle. You don't see how everything fits together. It feels like you have less authorship over the entire product. In directing, you take the entire picture into account, so you're challenged in a different way.

What frustrates me about some high-concept shows is that they don't give you information until sweeps, but 'Jericho's' audience will get a large piece of the puzzle every week.

I would still describe China as a vast, invigorating puzzle that will never make sense to my western upbringing.

In a chemistry class there was a guy sitting in front of me doing what looked like a jigsaw puzzle or some really weird kind of thing. He told me he was writing a computer program.

The Secure Fence Act, which authorizes the construction of 700 miles of security barriers along the southwest border, has now been sent to President Bush for his signature. This piece of legislation is an important piece of the border security puzzle.

Each one of us fulfills a piece of a larger puzzle.

A jigsaw puzzle is my form of meditation. In New York, I glued all of the ones I did together and hung them up on the wall.

You know, people call mystery novels or thrillers 'puzzles.' I never understood that, because when I buy a puzzle, I already know what it is. It's on the box. And even if I don't, if it's a 5,000-piece puzzle of the 'Mona Lisa', it's not like I put the last piece in and go, 'I had no idea it's the 'Mona Lisa'!'

The challenge coaches face is replacing players they were counting on to be major pieces of a puzzle. In a lot of cases, there is just no way to make the necessary adjustments.

It's like a jigsaw, there's a piece of the puzzle at the beginning and it's the only one and of course it had a lot to do with the way you look. And then you have to have the time to add pieces of the jigsaw.

Writing is mentally stimulating; it's like a puzzle that makes you think all the time.

The sun is the primary puzzle in the universe.

Why do we take pleasure in gruesome death, neatly packaged as a puzzle to which we may find a satisfactory solution through clues - or if we are not clever enough, have it revealed by the all-powerful tale-teller at the end of the book? It is something to do with being reduced to, and comforted by, playing by the rules.

I was always a big fan of 'Quincy,' and I loved the idea of puzzle solving.

I think that we're pattern-seeking animals, and what we like best is a story where everything fits together, where there's no puzzle pieces left over.

I had a big 'New York Times' crossword puzzle phase.

One of the exciting things about an entanglement puzzle is there's no end to it. Once you solve how to take it apart, you have to solve how to put it back together.

I don't think there is a hidden purpose to the universe that you have to puzzle out.

I genuinely enjoy the puzzle put before me with a crossover - how do I use this bigger piece of the Marvel Universe to tell a character-based tale I wouldn't normally think to tell?

I'd paint long strips of canvas and abandon them on the beach, or put bread out in geometric patterns for the pigeons downtown. I wanted people to find something nice and intriguing to puzzle over. Then I'd go back to see if the things were still there, or if anyone would notice.