Surprise Quotes - Page 11

• To my great surprise, Twitter is not housed in a silver pod that orbits Earth at supersonic speeds, vacuuming up and then dispersing digital bits of worldwide chitchat; it's in a big, bland office building in downtown San Francisco, near a bowling alley and an Old Navy.

  Susan Orlean

  San Francisco, Office, Navy

  "Good Fortune" by Susan Orlean, www.newyorker.com. March 20, 2011.

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• I don't know why it surprises people that I surprise them.

  Liz Phair

  People, Knows

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• It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character.

  Camille Pissarro

  Art, Character, Drawing

  Camille Pissarro, John Rewald (1963). “Camille Pissarro”, Harry N Abrams Inc

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• I don't think the government is out to get me or help someone else get me but it wouldn't surprise me if they were out to sell me something or help someone else sell me something. I mean, why else would the Census Bureau want to know my telephone number?

  Andy Rooney

  Mean, Thinking, Numbers

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• If bigots behave like bigots, it's not a huge surprise.

  Salman Rushdie

  Behave, Bigots, Huge

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• Who knows? Maybe years from now I'll be on a ranch in Colorado with 10 kids. The whole point of life is to experience a little bit of everything, and I think it's better when there are a few surprises thrown in.

  Keri Russell

  Kids, Thinking, Years

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• As young people we want something to slow us down and keep us trapped in one place long enough to look below the surface of the world. That disaster is a car crash or a war. To make us sit still. It can be getting cancer or getting pregnant. The important part is how it seems to catch us by surprise. That disaster stops us from living the life we'd planned as children - a life of constant dashing around.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Children, War, Cancer

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• No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise, fear and surprise; two chief weapons, fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency! Er, among our chief weapons are: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and near fanatical devotion to the Pope! Um, I'll come in again.

  Graham Chapman

  Two, Weapons, Pope

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• Men are easy,' he said, fingers tapping on his mahogany desk. 'A man's plumbing is like his mind: simple, very few surprises. You ladies, on the other hand...well, God put a lot of thought into making you.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Simple, Men, Hands

  Khaled Hosseini (2011). “The Kite Runner: Rejacketed”, p.161, A&C Black

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• Life is a series of surprises and would not be worth taking or keeping if it were not.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Life, Brighten Your Day

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.483, Library of America

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• It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.

  Daniel Handler

  Death, Fall, Dark

  "Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid". Book by Daniel Handler, April 24, 2007.

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• Tell all the Truth but tell it slant-- Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind--

  Emily Dickinson

  Children, Lying, Congratulations

  Emily Dickinson, Helen Vendler (2010). “Dickinson”, p.431, Harvard University Press

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• To his surprise he also discovered that it was possible to be good at what you had little interest in, just as it had been possible to be bad at something, whether painting or poetry, that you cared about a great deal.

  Richard Russo

  Littles, Painting, Interest

  Richard Russo (2017). “Empire Falls”, p.16, Atlantic Books

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• Expect nothing, live frugally on surprise. Become a stranger to need of pity. Or if compassion be freely given out, take only enough. Stop short of the urge to plead, then purge away the need. Wish for nothing larger than your own small heart or greater than a star. Tame wild disappointment with caress, unmoved and cold. Make of it a parka for your soul. Discover the reason why so tiny human midget exists at all, so scared and so unwise. But expect nothing, live frugally on surprise.

  Alice Walker

  Stars, Disappointment, Heart

  "Anything We Love Can Be Saved". Book by Alice Walker, June, 1997.

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• It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream - making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams.

  Joseph Conrad

  Dream, Struggle, Essence

  "Heart of Darkness". Book by Joseph Conrad, 1902.

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• The gift is for you...The surprise is for me.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

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• Well. Then we had the irises, rising beautiful and cool on their tall stalks, like blown glass, like pastel water momentarily frozen in a splash, light blue, light mauve, and the darker ones, velvet and purple, black cat's ears in the sun, indigo shadow, and the bleeding hearts, so female in shape it was a surprise they'd not long since been rooted out. There is something subversive about this garden of Serena's, a sense of buried things bursting upwards, wordlessly, into the light, as if to point, to say: Whatever is silenced will clamor to be heard, though silently.

  Margaret Atwood

  Beautiful, Cat, Heart

  Margaret Atwood (1986). “The Handmaid's Tale”, p.153, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The people who move through the streets are all strangers. At each encounter, they imagine a thousand things about one another; meetings which could take place between them, conversations, surprises, caresses, bites. But no one greets anyone; eyes lock for a second, then dart away, seeking other eyes, never stopping...something runs among them, an exchange of glances like lines that connect one figure with another and draw arrows, stars, triangles, until all combinations are used up in a moment, and other characters come on to the scene.

  Italo Calvino

  Running, Stars, Moving

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• Wait long enough and people will surprise and impress. When you're pissed off at someone and you're angry at them, you just haven't given them enough time. Just give them a little more time and they almost always will impress you.

  Randy Pausch

  Inspiring, Compassion, Long

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• When the woman you live with is an artist, every day is a surprise.

  Audrey Niffenegger

  Artist

  Audrey Niffenegger (2014). “The Time Traveler's Wife”, p.282, Simon and Schuster

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• When the poet Paul Valery once asked Albert Einstein if he kept a notebook to record his ideas, Einstein looked at him with mild but genuine surprise. "Oh, that's not necessary," he replied . "It's so seldom I have one.

  Bill Bryson

  Notebook, Ideas, Records

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• its no surprise to me that anyone hardly tells the truth about how they feel. The smart ones keep to themselves for good reason. Why would you want to tell anyone anything that's dear to you? Even when you like them and want nothing more than to be closer to them? It's so painful to be next to someone you feel so strongly about and know you can't say the things you want to.

  Henry Rollins

  Smart, Want, Next

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• What a surprise (we all know how tolerant the tolerant are).

  Junot Diaz

  Know How, Knows

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• Take all that you can of this book upon reason, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man. (When a skeptic expressed surprise to see him reading a Bible)

  Abraham Lincoln

  Bible, Faith, Book

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• Hippogriff, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one-quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Horse, Animal, Eagles

  Ambrose Bierce (2012). “The Devil's Dictionary”, p.51, Courier Corporation

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