Surprise Quotes - Page 16

• The future can ever promise but one thing and one thing only: surprises.

  Steven Erikson

  Promise, One Thing

  Steven Erikson (2009). “House Of Chains: Malazan Book Of The Fallen 4”, p.393, Random House

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• I hoped Lissa remained the only one with a surprise sibling.

  Richelle Mead

  Sibling

  Richelle Mead (2010). “Last Sacrifice: A Vampire Academy Novel”, p.283, Penguin

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• With my eyes closed, I ask if she knows how this will all turn out. "Long-term or short-term?" she asks. Both. "Long-term," she says, "we're all going to die. Then our bodies will rot. No surprise there. Short-term, we're going to live happily ever after." Really? "Really," she says. "So don't sweat it.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Eye, Sweat, Long

  Chuck Palahniuk (1999). “Survivor: A Novel”, Anchor

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• Worry is a way to pretend that you have knowledge or control over what you don't--and it surprises me, even in myself, how much we prefer ugly scenarios to the pure unknown.

  Rebecca Solnit

  Worry, Ugly, Way

  Rebecca Solnit (2010). “A Field Guide To Getting Lost”, p.175, Canongate Books

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• Perhaps we are born knowing the tales of our grandmothers and all their ancestral kin continually run in our blood repeating them endlessly, and the shock they give us when we first bear them is not of surprise but of recognition.

  P. L. Travers

  Running, Grandmother, Knowing

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• I invited a few people to help celebrate your birthday," Cameron said sheepishly. She threw up her hands. "Surprise." "We sort of come with the package," Collin explained. "Think of it as a collective gift from all of us to you: five bona fide annoying and overly intrusive new best friends." "It's the gift that keeps on giving," Wilkins said. Jack grinned. "I'm touched. Really. And since it appears I'm going to be moving in, let me be the first to say that all of you are always welcome at my and Cameron's house. Subject to a minimum of forty-eight hours prior notification.

  Julie James

  Moving, Thinking, Forty Eight

  Julie James (2010). “Something About You”, p.217, Penguin

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• It's shocking the things we call love.

  Deb Caletti

  Shocking Things, Shocking

  Deb Caletti (2010). “The Secret Life of Prince Charming”, p.83, Simon and Schuster

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• and yet, you never knew wwhat you were capable of until you arrived at that given moment. Life was just a whole string of spots where you continued to surprise yourself.

  Jodi Picoult

  Moments, Strings, Spots

  Jodi Picoult (2006). “The Tenth Circle: A Novel”, p.270, Simon and Schuster

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• Oh, if I had had a friend at this moment, a friend in an attic room, dreaming by candlelight and with a violin lying ready at his hand! How I should have slipped up to him in his quiet hour, noiselessly climbing the winding stair to take him by surprise, and then with talk and music we should have held heavenly festival throughout the night!

  Hermann Hesse

  Dream, Lying, Night

  Hermann Hesse (2013). “Steppenwolf: A Novel”, p.36, Macmillan

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• He lifed his head and looked down at her seriously. "Could you," he began, then he had to clear his throat. "Could you learn to be fond of me?" he asked. "With enough time?" She looked at him in surprise. It was the first time in all their acquaintance that she'd heard him sound the least bit hesitant. "I don't need to learn anything," she said, before she thought better of it.

  Lynn Kurland

  Sound, Enough Time, Needs

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• Well, hello there, Mother,” Sebastian said in a voice like silk. “Surprised to see me?

  Cassandra Clare

  Mother, Voice, Hello

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• I love you, I know this must come as something of a surprise, since all I’ve ever done is scorn you and degrade you and taunt you, but I have loved you for several hours now, and every second, more. I thought an hour ago that I loved you more than any woman has ever loved a man, but a half hour after that I knew that what I felt before was nothing compared to what I felt then. But ten minutes after that, I understood that my previous love was a puddle compared to the high seas before a storm.

  William Goldman

  Love You, Men, Sea

  William Goldman (2013). “The Princess Bride”, p.44, A&C Black

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• Has the dark shadow really disappeared? Or is it inside me, concealed, waiting for its chance to reappear? Like a clever thief hidden inside a house, breathing quietly, waiting until everyone’s asleep. I have looked deep inside myself, trying to detect something that might be there. But just as our consciousness is a maze, so too is our body. Everywhere you turn there’s darkness, and a blind spot. Everywhere you find silent hints, everywhere a surprise is waiting for you.

  Haruki Murakami

  Clever, Dark, Breathing

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• A brown spotted lady-bug climbed the dizzy height of a grass blade, and Tom bent down close to it and said, "Lady-bug, lady-bug, fly away home, your house is on fire, your children's alone," and she took wing and went off to see about it -- which did not surprise the boy, for he knew of old that this insect was credulous about conflagrations, and he had practised upon its simplicity more than once.

  Mark Twain

  Children, Home, Boys

  Mark Twain (2012). “Adventures of Tom Sawyer Companion”, p.124, BookCaps Study Guides

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• Life catches you by surprise. It always does. But there's good mixed in with the bad. It's there. You just have to recognize it.

  Susan Beth Pfeffer

  Doe

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• When you've lived as long as I have, nothing much surprises you.

  Michael Scott

  Long

  Michael Scott (2007). “Alchemist”, Delacorte Books for Young Readers

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• Because' I repeated, as a breeze blew over us, "sometimes things just happen. That aren't expected. Or on the list." "Such as?" he asked "I don't know," I said, frustrated. "That's the point. It would be out of the blue, taking us by surprise. Something we might not be prepared for." "But we will be prepared," he said, confused. "We'll have the list.

  Sarah Dessen

  Confused, Blue, Frustrated

  Sarah Dessen (2006). “The Truth About Forever”, p.366, Penguin

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• To my surprise, I recognized Dimitri Belikov-Rose's boyfriend-among those doing crowd control. He was easy to spot since he was almost always taller than everyone around him. Dhampirs look very human, and even I could admit that he was pretty good-looking. There was a rugged handsomeness to him, and even in a still photograph, I could see a fierceness as he watched the crowd.

  Richelle Mead

  Rose, Looks, Crowds

  Richelle Mead (2011). “Bloodlines”, p.127, Penguin

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• Some things are too terrible to grasp at once. Other things - naked, sputtering, indelible in their horror - are too terrible to really grasp ever at all.It is only later, in solitude, in memory that the realization dawns: when the ashes are cold; when the mourners have departed; when one looks around and finds oneself - quite to one's surprise - in an entirely different world.

  Donna Tartt

  Memories, Solitude, Departed

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• Schooling ain't life." "Ain't it?" she says, her eyebrows raising in mock surprise.

  Patrick Ness

  Eyebrows, Mock, Schooling

  Patrick Ness (2008). “The Knife of Never Letting Go”, Candlewick Press (MA)

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• What the mysterious is I do not know. I do not call it God because God has come to mean much that I do not believe in. I find myself incapable of thinking of a deity or of any unknown supreme power in anthropomorphic terms, and the fact that many people think so is continually a source of surprise to me. Any idea of a personal God seems very odd to me.

  Jawaharlal Nehru

  Believe, Mean, Thinking

  Jawaharlal Nehru (1980). “An Anthology”

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• She had taken him for granted, she thought with surprise and shame, watching the flickering candlelight. She had assumed his kindness was so natural and so innate, she had never asked herself whether it cost him any effort. Any effort to stand between Will and the world, protecting each of them from the other. Any effort to accept the loss of his family with equanimity. Any effort to remain cheerful and calm in the face of his own dying.

  Cassandra Clare

  Kindness, Taken, Loss

  Cassandra Clare (2013). “The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel; Clockwork Prince; Clockwork Princess”, p.644, Simon and Schuster

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• I'll do my bit tonight, but forgive me if it's a little harder to keep going than normal. Forgive me if I'm not superwoman after all." "Not superwoman?" he exclaimed, putting a hand on his chest in mock surprise. "You've lied to me all these years!

  Laurell K. Hamilton

  Hands, Years, Forgive Me

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• I don’t think Kitchen makes this. What’s it called again?" "Jell-O Surprise." Link grinned. "What’s the surprise?" Ridley examined the red gelatin more closely. "What they put in it.

  Kami Garcia

  Thinking, Kitchen, Links

  Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl (2011). “Beautiful Creatures: Dream Dark”, p.64, Penguin UK

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• Nothing human surprises me.

  Charles Willeford

  Surprise Me, Humans

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