Surprising Quotes - Page 11

• Now for me, you're the irreplaceable one: I've never see you up so close before, and I do not understand you at all. You say sometimes I act like I don't see you? I don't even know where to look! Living with you around is like is like living with a permanent dazzle. The fact that you even like me, or look at me, or brush by me, or hug me, or hold me, is so surprising that after it's over I have to go back through it a dozen times in my head to savor it and try and figure out what it was like because I was too busy being astounded while it was happening.

  Samuel R. Delany

  Hug, Trying, Looks

  25 Copy quote

• Relate comic things in pompous fashion. Irregularity, in other words the unexpected, the surprising, the astonishing, are essential to and characteristic of beauty. Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony. The blend of the grotesque and the tragic are attractive to the mind, as is discord to blasé ears. Imagine a canvas for a lyrical, magical farce, for a pantomime, and translate it into a serious novel. Drown the whole thing in an abnormal, dreamy atmosphere, in the atmosphere of great days … the region of pure poetry.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Fashion, Two, Mind

  7 Copy quote

• The first symptom of true love in a man is timidity, in a young woman, boldness. This is surprising, and yet nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach each other and assuming each the other's qualities.

  Victor Hugo

  Sex, Simple, Men

  Victor Hugo (2015). “Les Misérables”, p.1167, Booklassic

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• Elena?" "Yes, unless Nick found a woman in the forest, which I suppose wouldn't be too surprising.

  Kelley Armstrong

  Forests, Found

  Kelley Armstrong (2009). “Frostbitten”, p.290, Random House Canada

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Only Thing More Surprising Than the Chance She's Taking... Is Where It's Taking Her.

  Frances Mayes

  Chance

  "Under the Tuscan Sun". www.imdb.com. September 20, 2003.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You suck, surprising no one!!!! If bad was a boot, you'd fit it!!!! You're a stupid poo-poo head! I had sexual relations with your mother! Your mother was not that good in bed! You, sir, are a wretched soul! I am rubber, you are glue!

  Bryan Lee O'Malley

  Mother, Stupid, Soul

  4 Copy quote

• She was the first person on either side of her family to go to college, and she held herself to insanely high standards. She worried a lot about whether she was good enough. It was surprising to see how relieved she seemed whenever I told her how amazing she was. I wanted her to feel strong and free. She was beautiful when she was free.

  Rob Sheffield

  Beautiful, Strong, College

  Rob Sheffield (2007). “Love Is a Mix Tape: Life, Loss, and What I Listened To”, p.67, Crown Archetype

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• He asked if he could recite a poem he had written that morning: 'You speak,' he said, 'the language of shooting stars, more surprising than sunrise, more brilliant than the sun, as brief as sunset. I want to follow its trail to eternity.

  Amy Tan

  Morning, Stars, Sunset

  4 Copy quote

• Considering that we live in an era of evolutionary everything---evolutionary biology, evolutionary medicine, evolutionary ecology, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary economics, evolutionary computing---it was surprising how rarely people thought in evolutionary terms. It was a human blind spot. We look at the world around us as a snapshot when it was really a movie, constantly changing.

  Michael Crichton

  Blind Spots, Medicine, People

  Michael Crichton (2002). “Prey”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The pornographers are not a deviation from the norm. Their presence in the mainstream shouldn't be surprising, because they represent mainstream values: The logic of domination and subordination that is central to patriarchy, hyper-patriotic nationalism, white supremacy, and a predatory corporate capitalism.

  Robert Jensen

  Patriotic, White, Logic

  12 Copy quote

• Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.

  Jean Cocteau

  Light, Poetry, Roles

  "A Call to Order". Book by Jean Cocteau, 1926.

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• The real artist's work is a surprise to himself.

  Robert Henri

  Real, Artist, Surprise

  Robert Henri (1960). “The art spirit”, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In conflict, straightforward actions generally lead to engagement, surprising actions generally lead to victory.

  Sun Tzu

  War, Victory, Engagement

  31 Copy quote

• Art must take reality by surprise.

  Francoise Sagan

  Art, Reality, Surprise

  1958 Writers at Work.

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• The human race is the most stupid and unfair kind of race. A lot of the runners don't even get decent sneakers or clean drinking water. Some runners are born with a massive head start, every possible help along the way and still the referees seem to be on their side. It's not surprising a lot of people have given up compeating altogether and gone to sit in the grandstand, eat junk and shout abuse. What the human race needs is a lot more streakers.

  Banksy

  Stupid, Drinking, Sneakers

  27 Copy quote

• Most of the time I've worked in labs if I didn't encounter something in a week entirely unexpected and surprising I'd consider it a lost week. Lots of that is due to mistakes and stupidity, but it could open a new line of inquiry. Something really good turns up once in a hundred times, but it makes the whole day worthwhile.

  Lewis Thomas

  Mistake, Stupidity, Encounters

  6 Copy quote

• Drug companies spend more on advertising and marketing than on research, more on research on lifestyle drugs than on life saving drugs, and almost nothing on diseases that affect developing countries only. This is not surprising. Poor people cannot afford drugs, and drug companies make investments that yield the highest returns.

  Joseph Stiglitz

  Country, Yield, People

  32 Copy quote

• For me, it's the unexpected and surprising combinations of produce that are the most exciting and lure me into the kitchen for a little bit of experimenting. Apples and sweet potatoes together? Who knew? Carrots with grapes? Okay. I may not be Julia Child, but I can do pretty well with a simple recipe and a lot of enthusiasm.

  Marlo Thomas

  Sweet, Children, Simple

  "Seasonal Ingredients: 12 Fresh and Healthy Recipes for Fall" by Marlo Thomas, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 5, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's kind of surprising that you could just open up a site and let people work.

  Jimmy Wales

  People, Kind, Site

  “Fact-Driven? Collegial? This Site Wants You” by By Peter Meters, mobile.nytimes.com. September 20, 2001.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have an all-Japanese design team, and none of them speak English. So it's often funny and surprising how my ideas end up lost in translation.

  Pharrell Williams

  Team, Speak English, Ideas

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

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• To find gratitude and generosity when you could reasonably find hurt and resentment will surprise you. It will be so surprising because you will see so much of the opposite: people who have much more than others yet who react with anger when one advantage is lost or with resentment when an added gift is denied.

  Henry B. Eyring

  Gratitude, Hurt, Opposites

  7 Copy quote

• He moved like a dancer, which is not surprising; a horse is a beautiful animal, but it is perhaps most remarkable because it moves as if it always hears music.

  Mark Helprin

  Beautiful, Horse, Truth

  Mark Helprin (1983). “Winter's Tale”, p.18, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  50 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.

  David Hume

  Philosophical, Passion, Eye

  David Hume (2010). “Moral and Political Philosophy”, p.406, Simon and Schuster

  96 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is not surprising that honest and well-informed experts can disagree about facts. But beyond the disagreement about facts, there is another deeper disagreement about values.

  Freeman Dyson

  Experts, Facts, Honest

  4 Copy quote

• Are you a person—with volition and maybe some stubbornness and at least the capacity if not the actual determination to do something surprising—or are you a tool? A tool just serves its user. It’s only as good as the skill of its user, and it’s not good for anything else. So if you want to accomplish something special—something more than you can do for yourself—you can’t use a tool. You have to use a person and hope the surprises will work in your favor. You have to use something that’s free to not be what you had in mind.

  Stephen R. Donaldson

  Determination, Skills, Mind

  Stephen R. Donaldson (1982). “The One Tree”, Del Rey

  9 Copy quote

  Show source