Pleasant Surprises Quotes

• [A] pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.

  Rex Stout

  Pessimist, Optimist, Surprise

  Rex Stout (2010). “Fer-de-Lance”, p.3, Crimeline

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• One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do.

  Henry Ford

  Inspirational, Life, Education

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• Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me.

  Carl Sandburg

  Birthday, Optimism, Unexpected

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• Live your life as if you are ready to say goodbye to it at any moment, as if the time left for you were some pleasant surprise.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Goodbye, Live Your Life, Moments

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• One of the biggest and most pleasant surprises is that, even when you have that need to keep up an appearance of being right or knowing, there is life after admitting you don't know and that's beautiful.

  Ben Lee

  Beautiful, Knowing, Needs

  Source: collider.com

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• When you run into someone in NY it is usually a pleasant surprise. When you run into someone in LA you usually had a car accident.

  Susan Sarandon

  Running, Car, Accidents

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• I never want to do the same things twice. I like surprises.

  Audrey Tautou

  Want, Surprise

  "The Secret Life Of Audrey Tautou". Interview with Daniel Robert Epstein, www.suicidegirls.com. November 29, 2004.

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• The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless. It is a pleasant surprise to ourselves.

  Eric Hoffer

  Giving, Feelings, Literature

  Eric Hoffer (1955). “The passionate state of mind, and other aphorisms”

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• When we dare to doubt what we are told and take a fresh look at what's going on, we are in for lots of pleasant and fascinating and useful surprises. A new and more satisfying way of life begins to open up, just by noticing what we see.

  Douglas Harding

  Doubt, Looks, Way

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• It's such a pleasant surprise when you come on set and you find someone in charge like Ken Branagh or James Ivory. You know that you're going to do a day's work and at the end of it, it's going to be good.

  Anthony Hopkins

  Ivory, Ends, Be Good

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• I'm not afraid of being dead, that's to say there's nothing to be afraid of. I won't know I'm dead, would be my strong conviction. And if I find that I'm alive in any way at all, that'll be a pleasant surprise. I quite like surprises.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Strong, Would Be, Alive

  "Christopher Hitchens discusses life, death, cancer and God in interview with Newsnight". Newsnight interview, www.bbc.co.uk. November 26, 2010.

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• Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.

  Jane Austen

  Inspiring, Foolish, Pleasure

  'Emma' (1816) ch. 26 (Mr John Knightley)

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• If good things are coming, they will be a pleasant surprise," said the seer. "If bad things are, and you know in advance, you will suffer greatly before they even occur.

  Paulo Coelho

  Suffering, Good Things, Said

  Paulo Coelho (1998). “The Alchemist - 10th Anniversary Edition”, HarperSanFrancisco

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• More than a pleasant surprise, Danny Schmidt was no less than a revelation to me. And that's not a word I use lightly.

  Keith Morris

  Use, Revelations, Schmidt

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• There's something about Saint Francis's approach to life, zero expectations but pleasant surprise. In a lot of ways he was a really conflicted person. Some people would say he's masochistic . I don't really know, but I've always loved his reverence and his mindfulness.

  Denison Witmer

  Zero, People, Expectations

  Source: sojo.net

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• Sometimes you think, "Oh man, this is going to be a fantastic movie," and then when you see it put together, you're like, "Oh, huh. Well, that didn't turn out quite the way I thought." Sometimes you think you're part of a project and it isn't that great, and then it sort of becomes a pleasant surprise. But I think there's just too many elements that affect the tone of a movie, so I think even for a director, it may be hard to gauge that.

  Anna Faris

  Men, Thinking, Together

  Interview with Scott Tobias, film.avclub.com. April 7, 2009.

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• Awards are always a pleasant surprise. They are the candy-floss parts of our job - a lovely added extra to attract people's attention. The bottom line is that you want to sell tickets.

  Sophie Thompson

  Jobs, Awards, People

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• I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds. One of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied; they were relieved -- such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn't seem angry all the time.

  Barack Obama

  Moving, Black And White, Men

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• Truth, when we are fortunate enough to find it, is like bad-tasting medicine. It rarely comes as a pleasant surprise, because if it surprises us, it means we've been denying it for some time and have a lot of beliefs based on falsehood. It's hard to give up those beliefs.

  Orson Scott Card

  Giving Up, Mean, Medicine

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• So it was a really pleasant surprise when [Independence Day] turned out to be a successful film. I don't know if you've heard that they're going to be re-releasing it next Fourth of July in 3-D. I've actually only seen it once, and it was in Hawaii, in a little theater in Oahu shortly after it was released. But Roland Emmerich is a really smart guy, and he makes really fun movies to watch.

  Brent Spiner

  Fun, Smart, Successful

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• Investment bubbles and high animal spirits do not materialize out of thin air. They need extremely favorable economic fundamentals together with free and easy, cheap credit, and they need it for at least two or three years. Importantly, they also need serial pleasant surprises in such critical variables as global GNP growth.

  Jeremy Grantham

  Animal, Air, Years

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• One pleasant surprise was when I interviewed Butch Patrick. I was expecting this bitter old drunk, and instead he had a total sense of humor about his career and his drinking and drug problem.

  Gilbert Gottfried

  Drinking, Careers, Drunk

  "Gilbert Gottfried on his Amazing Colossal Podcast, Aladdin, and surviving SNL". Interview with Will Harris, tv.avclub.com. January 06, 2016.

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• Did he say:"Hullo,Pippin!This is a pleasant surprise!"?No,indeed!He said:"Get up,you tom-fool of a Took!Where,in the name of wonder,in all this ruin is Treebeard?I want him.Quick" -Pippin Took

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Names, Want, Ruins

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Two Towers: Being the Second Part of The Lord of the Rings”, p.108, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I really didn't have any bad hitchhiking experiences. The only bad experiences were standing by the road for 10 hours. I never thought I'd get a ride with a ministers wife or a coalminer or a Republican elected official. It was all pleasant surprises. The only drag was the waiting.

  John Waters

  Wife, Waiting, Hitchhiking

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• Speaking of food, English cuisine has received a lot of unfair criticism over the years, but the truth is that it can be a very pleasant surprise to the connoisseur of severely overcooked livestock organs served in lukewarm puddles of congealed grease. England manufactures most of the world's airline food, as well as all the food you ever ate in your junior-high-school cafeteria.

  Dave Barry

  Food, School, Years

  "Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need". Book by Dave Barry, 1991.

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