Surprising Quotes - Page 14

• I sometimes, in my sprightly moments, consider myself, in my great chair at school, as some dictator at the head of a commonwealth. In this little state I can discover all the great geniuses, all the surprising actions and revolutions of the great world in miniature. I have several renowned generals but three feet high, and several deep-projecting politicians in petticoats. I have others catching and dissecting flies, accumulating remarkable pebbles, cockleshells, etc., with as ardent curiosity as any virtuoso in the Royal Society.

  John Adams

  School, Knowledge, Feet

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1850). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.9

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A good story feels both surprising and inevitable, fresh and familiar.

  Adam Johnson

  Stories, Inevitable, Familiar

  "The Call For Collaboration" by Adam Johnson, therumpus.net. March 3, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Maybe it's the culture, maybe it's the cliché of Latino machismo, but the Mediterranean male character is more dull than the female character. Women are more surprising and they have fewer prejudices.

  Pedro Almodovar

  Character, Males, Female

  Interview with Maria Delgado, www.theguardian.com. August 4, 2006.

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• People often find it surprising that actors find photo shoots difficult, because you're very concerned about what's going on externally in those things when you have to be concerned with what's going on internally as an actor.

  Max Irons

  People, Actors, Difficult

  Interview with Rob Carnevale, www.indielondon.co.uk.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Oftentimes, misunderstandings and antagonism surfaces most strongly when economic times are tough. And that's not surprising. If everybody is working and feeling good and making money and buying a new house and a big screen TV, you're less worried about what other folks are doing.

  Barack Obama

  House, Feel Good, Feelings

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I often find things at thrift stores and library sales that I never could have been looking for. In those cases, the research is done after the fact to figure out what, exactly, I've found. It's surprising how much out there still has no online presence.

  Michael Dumontier

  Library, Done, Research

  Source: www.believermag.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A panoramic vision of Bob Dylan, his music, his shifting place in American culture, from multiple angles. In fact, reading Sean Wilentz's Bob Dylan in America is as thrilling and surprising as listening to a great Dylan song.

  Martin Scorsese

  Song, Reading, America

  5 Copy quote

• I've never really taken myself seriously as an actor, It is surprising the amount of people who think I'm going to be really dumb. I think they think anyone who has done teen movies is just an idiot. I don't know, maybe I am. Some of the best actors, if you talk to them, they're not the smartest people in the world.

  Robert Pattinson

  Taken, Thinking, People

  4 Copy quote

• There is something, yeah, I mean traditionally it's more fun to play bad guys than it is good guys and when you're playing a bad guy, yeah, the fun in it is to see how scary you can be, how horrible you can be. And it's surprising what you come up with.

  Bill Nighy

  Fun, Mean, Play

  "Bill Nighy Interview - UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS". Roundtable setting, collider.com. August 18, 2008.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There's nothing surprising about me. I'm dull. I am a fan of the New York subway. I love it.

  Brian F. O'Byrne

  New York, Fans, Dull

  4 Copy quote

• Children do not see themselves as shocking or surprising and do not want other people to do so.

  Elizabeth Ferrars

  Children, People, Want

  4 Copy quote

• The secret of literature, which conventional people don't guess, is that writers are forever looking for the surprising revelation - not for reinforcement of collective wisdom.

  Carol Bly

  People, Forever, Secret

  4 Copy quote

• Domestic work, is, after all, both tedious and repetitive, and it is not surprising that most women and all men avoid as much of it as possible.

  Mary Stocks, Baroness Stocks

  Men, Repetitive, Tedious

  4 Copy quote

• Canadians have an abiding interest in surprising those Americans who have historically made little effort to learn about their neighbour to the North.

  Peter Jennings

  Effort, Abiding, Littles

  7 Copy quote

• Synthetic Worlds is a surprisingly profound book about the social, political, and economic issues arising from the emergence of vast multiplayer games on the Internet. What Castronova has realized is that these games, where players contribute considerable labor in exchange for things they value, are not merely like real economies, they are real economies, displaying inflation, fraud, Chinese sweatshops, and some surprising in-game innovations.

  Tim Harford

  Real, Book, Player

  11 Copy quote

• Even the great scientists have reported that their creative break-throughs came at a time of mental quietude. The surprising result of a nationwide inquiry among America's most eminent mathematicians, including Einstein, to find out their working methods, was that thinking 'plays only a subordinate part in the brief, decisive phase of the creative act itself'.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Thinking, Play, America

  Eckhart Tolle (2010). “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment”, p.24, New World Library

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a somewhat-surprising, somewhat totally predictable paucity of struggle in entertainment television. I do like being a part of a show featuring a family from a struggling socioeconomic strata.

  Lucas Neff

  Struggle, Television, Entertainment

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Jesus told parables. When he wanted to say something really profound about God, he went into parable. I don't find it surprising then that when earliest Christianity wanted to say something profound about Jesus, they went into parable too. That doesn't mean everything is a parable. When it says Jesus was in Nazareth I don't think that's a parable, I think Jesus was in Nazareth. When it talks about Jesus walking on the water, I don't think that's the point at all, I think the point is that the church without Jesus sinks.

  John Dominic Crossan

  Jesus, Mean, Thinking

  Source: www.abc.net.au

  50 Copy quote

  Show source

• I come from a very expressive family, so it's really not surprising that we became actors. There was a lot of real-life drama in our house. Some of it was drama, some of it was comedy and some of it was comic-tragedy.

  John Turturro

  Real, Drama, House

  7 Copy quote

• My father has developed a tradition of surprising us at some point by appearing in fancy dress. He buys a new costume each year and typically gets carried away. A couple of Christmases ago he appeared in an inflatable sumo outfit. Its endearing, really, and only quite embarrassing.

  Pippa Middleton

  Couple, Father, Years

  9 Copy quote

• From being a writer of plays, it was not that surprising that somebody thought of giving me a job as an actor. After I played one part, others came along.

  Wallace Shawn

  Jobs, Play, Giving

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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I came to writing mysteries through poetry and still think that a well-constructed mystery is very much like a well-constructed sonnet. Both are artificial forms. Both start off in one direction and then, with a twist of the concluding couplet/surprising ending, both reveal that they were headed somewhere different all the time.

  Margaret Maron

  Writing, Thinking, One Direction

  4 Copy quote

• All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination. Even the richest, most surprising and wild imagination is not as rich, wild and surprising as reality. The task of the poet is to pick singular threads from this dense, colorful fabric.

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Reality, Agreement, Wild Imagination

  31 Copy quote

• Is it surprising that modern English land law should resemble a chaos rather than a system?

  Edward Jenks

  Land, Law, Chaos

  Edward Jenks (1922). “A Short History of English Law: From the Earliest Times to the End of the Year 1919”

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Illness can make us behave in the most surprising ways.

  Susan Minot

  Way, Illness, Behave

  "Author Q&A". Interview, www.penguinrandomhouse.com. September 7, 1999.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source