Surprise Quotes - Page 36

• Though you lose all hope, there is still hope, and it loves to surprise.

  Robert Breault

  Hope, Stills, Loses

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• Unfamiliarity lends weight to misfortune, and there was never a man whose grief was not heightened by surprise.

  Seneca the Younger

  Grief, Men, Weight

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• Our psychological reality, which lies below the surface, frightens us because it endlessly surprises us and drives us in a direction which society's rules and organizations define as wrong or dangerous.

  Anais Nin

  Lying, Reality, Organization

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• The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Reading, Thinking

  Samuel Johnson (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.398, Harvard University Press

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• Rich men's houses are seldom beautiful, rarely comfortable, and never original. It is a constant source of surprise to people of moderate means to observe how little a big fortune contributes to Beauty.

  Margot Asquith

  Beautiful, Women, Home

  Margot Asquith (1963). “Autobiography”

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• 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.

  Tracy Chapman

  Never Assume, Honestly, Happens

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• Surprise me! Yogi's reply when he was asked by his wife, Carmen, where he would like to be buried

  Yogi Berra

  Wife, Yogi, Buried

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• Adults who still derive childlike pleasure from hanging gifts of a ready-made education on the Christmas tree of a child waiting outside the door to life do not realize how unreceptive they are making the children to everything that constitutes the true surprise of life.

  Karl Kraus

  Education, Children, Doors

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• To be married to a good woman is to live with tender surprise.

  Norman Mailer

  Women, Good Woman, Married

  Norman Mailer (2007). “Harlot's Ghost: A Novel”, p.26, Random House

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• Art must take reality by surprise. It takes those moments which are for us merely a moment, plus a moment, plus another moment, and arbitrarily transforms them into a special series of moments held together by a major emotion.

  Francoise Sagan

  Art, Reality, Special

  "Françoise Sagan, The Art of Fiction No. 15". Interview with Blair Fuller and Robert B. Silvers, www.theparisreview.org. Autumn 1956.

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• No phrase can convey the idea of surprise so vividly as opening the eyes and raising the eyebrows. A shrug of the shoulders would lose much by translation into words.

  Herbert Spencer

  Eye, Ideas, Phrases

  Herbert Spencer (1858). “Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative”, p.230

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• The most interesting things that happen in my books are usually the things that arise spontaneously, the things that surprise me.

  Jay McInerney

  Book, Interesting, Arise

  "Novelist Jay McInerney on Getting Your Novel Underway". Interview with Anne Bowling, www.writersdigest.com. March 11, 2008.

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• To my great surprise and pleasure, I have had dinner with most of the people living with whom I would like to have dinner.

  Holly Near

  People, Dinner, Pleasure

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• Economics is like gravity: Ignore it and you will be in for some rude surprises.

  Charles Wheelan

  Rude, Economics, Gravity

  Charles Wheelan (2010). “Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science (Fully Revised and Updated)”, p.22, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Most research into life's murky origin has been carried out by chemists. They've tried a variety of approaches in their attempts to recreate the first steps on the road to life, but little progress has been made. Perhaps that is no surprise, given life's stupendous complexity.

  Paul Davies

  Progress, Research, Littles

  "The secret of life won't be cooked up in a chemistry lab" by Paul Davies, www.theguardian.com. January 13, 2013.

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• Familiarity with nature never breeds contempt. The more one learns, the more one expects surprises, and the more one becomes aware of the inscrutable.

  Archibald Rutledge

  Nature, Contempt, Inscrutable

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• If there's one thing I can say about my garden, it can always surprise me.

  David Hobson

  Garden, Essentials, One Thing

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• I think falling in love is always a surprise, right?

  Josh Dallas

  Falling In Love, Love Is, Thinking

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• You will be favourable to Burr, and so must fail because the American reader cannot bear a surprise. He knows that this is the greatest country on earth, Washington the greatest man that ever lived, Burr the wickedest, and evidence to the contrary is not admissible. That means no inconvenient facts, no new information. If you really want the reader's attention, you must flatter him. Make his prejudices your own. Tell him things he already knows. He will love your soundness.

  Gore Vidal

  Country, Love You, Mean

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• I'm afraid that surprise, shock, and regret is the fate of authors when they finally see themselves on the page.

  Julia Child

  Regret, Writing, Fate

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• My sister-in-law found a real surprise in her stockings - my brother.

  Milton Berle

  Christmas, Brother, Real

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• This man's wife told him, "For Christmas, surprise me." On Christmas Eve he leaned over where she was sleeping and said, "Boo!"

  Milton Berle

  Christmas, Sleep, Men

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• Goldfish have no memory, I guess their lives are much like mine. And the little plastic castle is a surprise everytime.

  Ani DiFranco

  Memories, Animal, Castles

  Song: Little Plastic Castle, Album: Little Plastic Castle

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• Most really good fiction is compelled into being. It comes from a kind of uncalculated innocence. You need not have your ending in mind before you commence. Indeed, you need not be certain of exactly what's going to transpire on page 2. If you know the whole story in advance, your novel is probably dead before you begin it. Give it some room to breathe, to change direction, to surprise you. Writing a novel is not so much a project as a journey, a voyage, an adventure.

  Tom Robbins

  Writing, Adventure, Journey

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• It's no surprise that White people say things when they are together about Black people.

  Henry Louis Gates

  White, People, Black

  "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. March 19, 2008.

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