Surprise Quotes - Page 22

• That I had never heard of such a bird did not surprise me.... But others more experienced also did not know of the Carolina Parakeet. The more I spoke of the bird, the more it seemed that, somehow, its existence had been a chimera. Admittedly, my survey was small and unscientific, but intelligent people who could reel off the names of various dinosaurs and identify sparrows at epic distances could not name the forgotten parakeet. I realized, forcefully, what I suppose I knew abstractly: Histories, like species, can go extinct.

  Christopher Cokinos

  Distance, Epic, Intelligent

  Christopher Cokinos (2009). “Hope Is the Thing With Feathers: A Personal Chronicle of Vanished Birds”, p.12, Penguin

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• I could feel myself begin to recede, to tip and lose balance, slide toward the deeper darkness that had crept in from outside. It happened so quickly and took me by surprise; sometimes I just turned around and found it there-ah, camarade-unaware it had been waiting for me for days.

  Bryan Mealer

  Depression, Waiting, Darkness

  Bryan Mealer (2008). “All Things Must Fight to Live: Stories of War and Deliverance in Congo”, Bloomsbury USA

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• The work is primarily subject-driven.  All decisions flow from there. The photographs are all made in response to a unique subject, in particular context, at a specific moment in time. The thoughtful preparedness that defines my working method actually facilitates spontaneity and allows me to embrace surprise. I always have a game plan but view it as merely the jumping off point.

  Gregory Heisler

  Thoughtful, Unique, Jumping

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• In Because, Joseph Riippi says he wants this book to be ‘a love letter, a prayer, a purge’ but it actually becomes even more than that. It’s a bursting-at-the-seams dream that cradles so many wishes and passions into its wide scope that it constantly surprises with unexpected turns and brilliant thoughts. It transcends its simple mantra-like structure and becomes a reverberating world of beauty and wonder.

  Kevin Sampsell

  Dream, Prayer, Book

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• Perhaps that is the real surprise of love; it exists, but one may not attribute causes and effects to it. The existence may appear to be a mere fallacy to the minds of some, and by the time they realise what hit them, they would already be down and dead.

  Faraaz Kazi

  True Love, Real, Mind

  Faraaz Kazi (2012). “Truly, Madly, Deeply!: Memoirs of a Broken Heart's First Love!”, p.35, Faraaz Kazi

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• Love is like swallowing hot chocolate before it has cooled off. It takes you by surprise at first, but keeps you warm for a long time.

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  Valentines Day, Romantic Love, Love Is

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• I judge wisely...as if nothin ever surprise me,
  Loungin, between two pillars of ivory.
  I'm lively, my dome piece is like buildin stones in Greece.
  My poems are deep, from ancient thrones I speak.

  Killah Priest

  Rap, Two, Ivory

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• Sometimes people can surprise you. Sometimes they have a great capacity to hear the truth.

  Joe Seneca

  Truth, Reality, People

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• It was a bit of a surprise for us that we had problems in Hungary. But in reality, I think the car could have been pretty competitive with a trouble-free race.

  Fernando Alonso

  Reality, Thinking, Race

  "Turkish GP: Renault preview". Motorsport.com Interview, www.motorsport.com. August 15, 2005.

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• We told them this morning and I think they (reacted) like you would expect. It was a surprise and the reality of this is very sobering for everybody. I don't take this lightly at all not at all.

  Mike Jackson

  Morning, Reality, Thinking

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• Social media provides us the opportunity to think before we 'speak', giving us a better shot at reasoned dialog. So it's not a huge surprise to me that not only can real communication happen, but real relationships can blossom.

  Paul Biedermann

  Real, Communication, Opportunity

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• I was eleven years old when I saw a woman for the first time, and I was seized by such sudden surprise that I burst into tears.

  Mia Couto

  Years, Tears, Saws

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• You have only 30 seconds in a TV commercial. If you grab attention in the first frame with a visual surprise, you stand a better chance of holding the viewer. People screen out a lot of commercials because they open with something dull. When you advertise fire-extinguishers, open with the fire.

  David Ogilvy

  Fire, People, Attention

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• During my last year of college I wrote the same ten pages over and over again. Those ten pages became the first few pages of my first novel. I can still recite the opening paragraph from memory - only now I cringe when I do it because they are - surprise! - a classic example of overwriting, in addition to being a more than a little pretentious.

  Patricia Briggs

  Memories, College, Years

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• My characters surprise me constantly. My characters are like my friends - I can give them advice, but they don't have to take it. If your characters are real, then they surprise you, just like real people

  Laurell K. Hamilton

  Real, Writing, Character

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• Jazz is musical humor. The noun jazz describes a modern American technique for the playing of any music, accompanied by noise called harmony, and interpolated instrumental effects. It also describes music exhibiting influence of that technique which has as its traditional object to secure the effects of surprise, or in the broadest sense, humor.

  Bix Beiderbecke

  Musical, Technique, Nouns

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• Life off Earth is in two important respects not at all unworldly: you can choose to focus on the surprises and pleasures, or the frustrations. And you can choose to appreciate the smallest scraps of experience, the everyday moments, or to value only the grandest, most stirring ones.

  Chris Hadfield

  Frustration, Two, Appreciate

  Chris Hadfield (2013). “An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth”, p.144, Pan Macmillan

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• The biggest failures come round and spring ultimate surprises of survival.

  Jack White

  Spring, Survival, Rounds

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• 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.

  Deb Caletti

  Love, Sex, Drama

  Deb Caletti (2011). “Honey, Baby, Sweetheart”, p.122, Simon and Schuster

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• Listening is like running down a mountain on a switchback trail, the sound of surprise generating its own momentum. There’s a punk glee inside the bluegrass craft–and a punk vehemence inside the bluegrass smile.

  Greil Marcus

  Running, Listening, Mountain

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• Literature offers us all, writers and readers, the best method of discovering and retelling the changing story of ourselves. The story is both journey and surprise. And as everyone knows, even the past is altered, depending on, not the facts, but the interpretation.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Past, Journey, Stories

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• Is it a surprise that into the vessel, in which the mercury has no inclination and no repugnance, not even the slightest, to being there, it should enter and should rise in a column high enough to make equilibrium with the weight of the external air which forces it up?

  Evangelista Torricelli

  Air, Weight, Mercury

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• I have not asked for life.
  But I try to accept whatever
  life brings without surprise.
  And I shall depart again without having
  questioned anyone about my strange
  stay here on earth.

  Omar Khayyam

  Trying, Earth, Strange

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• The shortest day has passed, and whatever nastiness of weather we may look forward to in January and February, at least we notice that the days are getting longer. Minute by minute they lengthen out. It takes some weeks before we become aware of the change. It is imperceptible even as the growth of a child, as you watch it day by day, until the moment comes when with a start of delighted surprise we realize that we can stay out of doors in a
  twilight lasting for another quarter of a precious hour.

  Vita Sackville-West

  Children, Twilight, Weather

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• I'm in politics. I'm in government, so nothing surprises me

  Andrew Cuomo

  Government, Surprise Me

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