Quotes about surprise

There's no longer any surprise in noting that China has grave environmental problems.

The individual can maintain himself in a society definitely organized only through possessing an equally definite mental and moral constitution. This is what the neuropath lacks. His state of disturbance causes him to be constantly taken by surprise by circumstances.

Her face lit up illuminated by the enlightenment of recognition and the innocence of surprise.

I said I *liked* being half-educated you were so much more *surprised* at everything when you were ignorant.

You may pray to God to remove the hills on your way and fill every pothole on your path but don’t be surprised if God gives you a shovel to do so!

How quickly he fell how soon it was over.

An artistic perspective will jab at you from a different angle its logic comes like a pitcher with a curveball.

I never assumed I would have that commercial success, so it was a total surprise. And honestly, I never assumed that it would ever happen again.

I worked half my life to be an overnight success, and still it took me by surprise.

Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.

Jazz and poetry both involve a structure that may be familiar and to some extent predictable. And then, you try to create as much surprise and spontaneity and feeling and variation while respecting that structure.

Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity, it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.

It would probably surprise people to know that I'm interested in wildlife. I read a lot of poetry, too.

What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be.

Contempt is the only asymmetrical expression in the muscular facial system: Disgust, fear, happiness, surprise and anger typically express themselves symmetrically. Contempt is marked by one lip corner pulled up and in a dismissive sneer.

I'm into all that sappy stuff - a surprise picnic, nice dinner, or traveling. I'm kind of an old romantic.

The most romantic thing someone did was surprise me at the airport, after being away for 3 months in Los Angeles. You always see people with signs, and you're like, 'Isn't that lovely?' and then you see your own name on one - that isn't a taxi driver's! I was very impressed.

Historically, nature has been very good at surprising us.

If you can sustain your interest in what you’re doing, you’re an extremely fortunate person. What you see very frequently in people’s professional lives, and perhaps in their emotional life as well, is that they lose interest in the third act. You sort of get tired, and indifferent, and, sometimes, defensive. And you kind of lose your capacity for astonishment — and that’s a great loss, because the world is a very astonishing place. What I feel fortunate about is that I’m still astonished, that

An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books once only. . . . We do not enjoy a story fully at the first reading. Not till the curiosity, the sheer narrative lust, has been given its sop and laid asleep, are we at leisure to savour the real beauties. Till then, it is like wasting great wine on a ravenous natural thirst which merely wants cold wetness.

People are invariably surprised to hear me say I am both an atheist and an agnostic, as if this somehow weakens my certainty. I usually reply with a question like, 'Well, are you a Republican or an American?' The two words serve different concepts and are not mutually exclusive. Agnosticism addresses knowledge; atheism addresses belief. The agnostic says, 'I don't have a knowledge that God exists.' The atheist says, 'I don't have a belief that God exists.' You can say both things at the same tim

The flowers are for the woman I glimpsed for just a moment the other night before she ran away with tears brimming in her eyes." His eyes drifted over the becoming blush of her cheeks, wondering why it was suddenly there. "That's the woman I see when I look at you. That's the woman I want to get to know tonight. Do you think she might be joining us?

She had come into the garden expecting summer roses and had instead been caught in a bank of twisted, thorny, frostbitten vines.

People live on the flow of the daily reality and they surge on the waves of hazy expectations. They can experience pleasant junctures and try to catch and enjoy each special moment that is offered to them. Until life takes them by surprise.

Creative people are constantly surprised. They don’t assume that they understand what is happening around them, and they don’t assume that anybody else does either. They question the obvious—not out of contrariness but because they see the shortcomings of accepted explanations before the rest of us do. They sense problems before they are generally perceived and are able to define what they are.

Even when alternative views are clearly wrong, being exposed to them still expands our creative potential. In a way, the power of dissent is the power of surprise. After hearing someone shout out an errant answer, we work to understand it, which causes us to reassess our initial assumptions and try out new perspectives. “Authentic dissent can be difficult, but it’s always invigorating,” [Charlan] Nemeth [a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley] says. “It wakes us ri

Be aware of the company you keep. You'd be surprised how easily they rub off on you. You don't want to attract the wrong influence.

Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.

What is essential is to suddenly make a move totally unexpected by the opponent, pick up on the advantage of fright, and seize the victory right then and there.

What's happened to me,' he thought. It was no dream.

Who are you?” I asked.“Are we playing that game again?” she asked me with a nice smile. “Lana, sorry to disappoint you, but I really am in a hurry, so I will have to take a rain check on this. We can play later this evening, if you don’t mind!”“What game? I really mean it, who are you and why am I here?” I must have looked like I had really freaked out, and for a moment, she looked at me seriously. But then, she gave me another nice smile and kissed me on my cheek and said “Really babe, as much

The attacks of 9/11 were the biggest surprise in American history, and for the past ten years we haven't stopped being surprised. The war on terror has had no discernible trajectory, and, unlike other military conflicts, it's almost impossible to define victory. You can't document the war's progress on a world map or chart it on a historical timetable in a way that makes any sense. A country used to a feeling of being in command and control has been whipsawed into a state of perpetual reaction,

Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.

It was frightening to realize how fast things could go wrong.

It was the cruelest of destiny’s tricks, the death of a young person.

You need to wake yourself up and take a grab at life. No one is going to hand it to you.

Some people are just different, even in the same family.

The magic of purpose and of love in its purest form. Not televison love, with its glare and hollow and sequined glint; not sex and allure, all high shoes and high drama, everything both too small and in too much excess, but just love. Love like rain, like the smell of a tangerine, like a surprise found in your pocket.

Don't be surprised when Death comes knocking. Be surprised when he goes away empty handed.

The secret to humor is surprise.

Humor is a spontaneous, wonderful bit of an outburst that just comes. It's unbridled, its unplanned, it's full of suprises.

Knowing is not simply a material act, since the object that is known always conceals something beyond the empirical datum. All our knowledge, even the most simple, is always a minor miracle, since it can never be fully explained by the material instruments that we apply to it. In every truth there is something more than we would have expected, in the love that we receive there is always an element that surprises us.

He pulled her close kissing her mouth taking her by surprise. He stepped back passion smoldering in his eyes. She looked at him touching her mouth where his kiss still burned.

There are two kinds of taste in the appreciation of imaginative literature: the taste for emotions of surprise and the taste for emotions of recognition.

Those who earn your trust by surprise will leave surprisingly

Surprise is a major factor in distinguishing an answer to prayer from a projection of my own mental processes. When I can’t believe I made up the answer myself, I have to look around to see where it came from.

Ricky just listens. He isn't shocked. He isn't surprised. He listens to me because he knows. He knows the shame and the guilt and the sorrow and the rage. And he does not judge me. He just listens.

If you let life pass you by now, it won't ever come back. You don't get another chance.

In past wars only homes burnt, but this timeDon't be surprised if even loneliness ignites.In past wars only bodys burnt, but this timeDon't be surprised if even shadows ignite.

Creativity always comes as a surprise to us; therefore we can never count on it and we dare not believe in it until it has happened... Hence, the only way in which we can bring our creative resources fully into play is by misjudging the nature of the task, by presenting it to ourselves as more routine, simple, undemanding of genuine creativity than it will turn out to be... We are apparently on the trail here of some sort of invisible or hidden hand that beneficially hides difficulties from us.

Hope is not logical. It always comes as a surprise, just when you think all hope is lost. Hope is the cousin to grief, and both take time: you can’t short-circuit grief, or emptiness, and you can’t patch it up with your bicycle tire tube kit. You have to take the next right action.

You seem to forget that the sun must set. You knew perfectly well that I would not be with you long enough. Still, you weep and cry and ask God ‘Why’ as if it were some kind of surprise. Why? Because love changes everything. Love’s the surprise.

Your name isn't Sniffles?" Ewan pretended to be surprised.

Death can surprise us. It can scare us. It can keep us up at night. But we’ve also learned the things that death cannot do. It cannot crush our hopes. It cannot take away the love and support of our friends and family.

Hang in. We’ll make it. We all have each other.

The surprise was worse that the pain. It showed a lack of awareness.

Don't worry, keep at it, you will soon shock the world

Seriously. Poor little me can deal with having mated a millionaire.”“Oh, you found someone else? With less money?

Chance is the nature of our universe. […] madness represents a chaotic reservoir of surprises. Some surprises can be valuable.

You are my winter suddenness—a glass of red wine spilt across a white tablecloth

Disappointment has quite a penchant for taking one by a surprise.

It's as if she assumes everything will go right, and when it doesn't - which, of course, is pretty often - she is surprised and affronted.

People expect what they expect.. They never realize the possibility of surprise beyond expectations..!

Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.

Nick shook his head and found to his surprise that he did have tears left after all. He wasn't surprised by a talking cat. The world was crumbling around him and anything could happen.

There can never be surprises in logic.

These occasions always took him by surprise. He was shocked anew each time the crisply surveyed, neatly kept world he so cherished rose up to confront him with all its essential sloppiness, irrationality, and bad business sense.

The man who said, "Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed," put the eulogy quite inadequately and even falsely. The truth "Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall be gloriously surprised." The man who expects nothing sees redder roses than common men can see, and greener grass, and a more startling sun. Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall possess the cities and the mountains; blessed is the meek, for he shall inhereit the earth. Until we

Dream big, I dreamt of being taller when I was a kid, reinforced with flashbacks everyday I exercised diligently and to my surprise, I am still 5 feet tall.

That of all people, it should be him; that took her aback. That the heart should settle on somebody like him; that surprised her. But she was so certain about it, so certain.

Why is it always such a surprise? thinks Toby. The moon. Even though we know it's coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush.

Love is always a surprise and you never get it right.

When we would say 'No way,' he would say, 'My way.' Then the ones who doubted would scramble to salvage the blessing. And the one who gave it would savor the surprise.

I was like a chocolate in a box, looking well behaved and perfect in place, all the while harboring a secret center.

We all wish to live every moment of our life but its the death who gives us a surprise.

It is not a surprise that there are people we love and hate at the same time. Not as though we hate them, but we hate how they don't love us.

When everything all in a moment comes together, surprisingly perfect, it doesn’t prove there’s a loving God; but if there is, isn’t it perfect when all in a moment, God proves how surprisingly He loves?

...everyone knows that road, the one leading out of town into a deep green expanse of pastures and old farmhouses, which at first makes it seem like you're entering a fairy tale, something sweet and old fashioned and lost in time. But, like all fairy tales, the beginning is always beautiful, a ruse to draw you into something you aren't anticipating.

I think in a moment of weakness, you might surprise yourself.

Trust me, there are things in this mountain that will make your jaw bounce off the floor.

I don't want adventure.""I think you do. I think in a moment of weakness, you might surprise yourself.

I've learned that some memories surprise you and reveal a sharp edge just when you least expect it.

She was the sky full of surprises. Her dreams were blue and breathtaking as a bright day and her secrets were dark and poetic as a cold night. Either way, she was the most beautiful mess that one had ever come across.

I know enough of the world now to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything

That should have been my strategy! By the time I’ve worked through the emotions of surprise, admiration, anger, jealousy, and frustration, I’m watching that reddish mane of hair disappear into the trees well out of shooting range.

Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often.

It’s funny how even when you’ve lived with someone your whole life, they can still surprise you.

Respond to critics with humility. Most people are experts in finding problems with whatever others do. That should not be a surprise to you.

It was like magic, but so much of magic is about misdirection, whereas so much of redemption is straightforward and ordinary, piercing true and lit with surprise.

Magic is a very beautiful mystery. Even the ages old magic effects still surprises the most modern men.

What constitutes the pleasure of the traveler is the obstacle, the fatigue, the peril itself. What pleasure can there be in an excursion where one is always sure of arriving, finding ready horses, a soft bed, an excellent supper, and all the comforts one can enjoy at home. One of the great misfortunes of modern life is the lack of the sudden surprise, the absence of all adventures. Everything is so well regulated, so well meshed, so well labeled, that chance is no longer possible; another centur

The most pleasant surprise is to get lost in the beauty of life.

I put complains aside and replace each of them with trials and to my surprise, some things I see as difficult were not so before! I conclude that "Success resides behind the curtains of complains; tear those pieces of complains away and you will see the stage of your dreams clearly"!

All of this,' the prophet said, serene, 'all of our activities, Sayid, you must understand this, all of your suffering, it's all part of a greater plan.''You'd be surprised at how little comfort I take from that notion.

I'm justthe reason they married.Mum saysI was a surprise.Dad saysI was an accident.Truth is ...I am their mistake.

Then he led her to sit by him on a fallen gum trunk, smooth and white, and he leaned to whisper in her ear. Transferred the secret he and her mother had kept for seventeen years. Waited for the flicker of recognition, the minute shift in expression as she registered what he was telling her. Watched as the bottom fell out of her world and the person she had been vanished in an instant.

And it is very sexy as well: somebody says I'm taking you on a surprise date, you don't know where you are going and you can't see and then you put your hand out and there is a tiger. Amazing.

A nice blend of prediction and surprise seem to be at the heart of the best art.

Visual surprise is natural in the Caribbean; it comes with the landscape, and faced with its beauty, the sigh of History dissolves.