Surprising Quotes - Page 25

• A surprising amount of my jokes sound very implausible but are true.

  Jimmy Carr

  Sound, Jokes, Amount

  "What I know about women". Interview with Jon Bennett, www.theguardian.com. March 08, 2008.

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• It is my considered opinion that the human race (soi disant) is cruel, idiotic, sentimental, predatory, ungrateful, ugly, conceited and egocentric to the last ditch and that the occasional discovery of an isolated exception is as deliciously surprising as finding a sudden brazil nut in what you know to be five pounds of vanilla creams. These glorious moments, although not making life actually worth living, perhaps, at least make it pleasanter.

  Noel Coward

  Conceited, Discovery, Nuts

  Noel Coward (2008). “The Letters of Noel Coward”, p.39, Vintage

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• Japan lives with drastic segregation between the sublime, the ugly, and the utterly without qualities. Dominance of the last 2 categories makes mere presence of the first stunning: when beauty 'happens', it is absolutely surprising.

  Rem Koolhaas

  Japan, Sublime, Quality

  "S,M,L,XL". Book by Bruce Mau and Rem Koolhaas, 1995.

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• There's a lot of UFO sightings in New Orleans, which isn't really too surprising. There's a lotta crazy people there. The people there lack the intelligence to know what they are seeing, so that's why the UFO's go there.

  Billy Corgan

  Crazy, New Orleans, People

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• It takes a surprising amount of courage to place one's hand into an unseen area when your mind is thinking about vermin.

  R.L. LaFevers

  Thinking, Hands, Mind

  R. L. LaFevers (2008). “Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos”, p.306, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Everyone tries to create a world he can live in, and what he can't use he often can't see. But the real world is already created, and if your fabrication doesn't correspond, then even if you feel noble and insist on there being something better than what people call reality, that better something needn't try to exceed what, in its actuality, since we know it so little, may be very surprising. If a happy state of things, surprising; if miserable or tragic, no worse than what we invent.

  Saul Bellow

  Real, Often Can, People

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• It is so often surprising, who rescues you at your lowest moments.

  Aimee Bender

  Moments, Rescue, Lowest

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• I hate it when, by page 30, I know what the lead's going to do and then what the bad guy's gonna do. Mostly it's just scripts by the numbers where nothing's surprising, nothing's interesting.

  Don Cheadle

  Hate, Numbers, Interesting

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• Yes, well, life is a folly. If you live long enough, nothing is surprising.

  Tracy Chevalier

  Long, Life Is, Enough

  Tracy Chevalier (1999). “Girl with a Pearl Earring”, E P Dutton

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• Most of us carry at least one device, all the time, every day. In fact many of us would feel naked without our smartphone. It's hardly surprising mobile search queries - and mobile commerce - are growing dramatically across the world.

  Larry Page

  Technology, Smartphones, Gadgets

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• My policy on energy is... to make America the largest energy producer in the world. I think we can get there, in 10 or 15 years. That will bring back manufacturing of certain high-energy intensive industries. It'll bring back jobs. It'll create a surprising economic revitalization of this country.

  Mitt Romney

  Country, Jobs, Thinking

  "Why Bain matters". Interview with Mark Halperin, www.washingtonexaminer.com. May 24, 2012.

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• Ethologists thus have an interest in looking at these capacities for the reliable acquisition of belief, and it is not surprising that they have a name for the true beliefs which are the typical product of these reliable capacities. They call them items of knowledge. So I argue that talk of knowledge may thereby be seen to be embedded within a successful empirical theory.

  Hilary Kornblith

  Successful, Names, Acquisition

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• It is thus hardly surprising that so many of the great minds in recent history have concerned themselves with economic matters. Indeed, they have come to regard economic theory in precisely the same way the ancient philosophers viewed the heavens - as the key to understanding and controlling our fate.

  Paul Zane Pilzer

  Fate, Keys, Heaven

  Paul Zane Pilzer (1990). “Unlimited Wealth: The Theory and Practice of Economic Alchemy”, Crown

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• Your sex have such a surprising animosity against one another, when you do differ.

  Charles Dickens

  Sex, Animosity

  Charles Dickens (1853). “Bleak house: With illustr. by H. K. Browne”, p.526

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• Ironically, there isn't much comedy film in Britain, which is quite surprising seeing that we're quite good at it.

  Alice Lowe

  Comedy, Film, Britain

  Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

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• It's been a struggling school for many, many years, and [that's] not surprising since it's serving some of the most disadvantaged kids in the city. It wasn't the only one by any means, but it was among those. It shows that things like good, steady, stable leadership makes a huge difference; focusing on the culture of the schools as a place where kids feel supported and want to be; supporting the teachers, so they want to stay and work hard.

  Pedro Noguera

  Teacher, Struggle, Mean

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• I want the situations and plots to be surprising and unusual.

  Arthur Bradford

  Plot, Want, Unusual

  Source: www.bookbrowse.com

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• I find it only natural for a storyteller to be interested in storytelling and, for anyone who spends the better part of his or her life writing fiction, it is hardly surprising that the pleasures, worries, and mechanics of fiction-making should enter the work.

  Norman Lock

  Writing, Worry, Fiction

  Source: therumpus.net

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• Not to any really influential effect, but certainly there have been comments that have surprised me. It's surprising sometimes to get particular perspectives on your work, and it's enlightening sometimes to know that non-writers and readers out there have certain assumptions about everything that I both want to keep in mind and want to forget about why I write, and about the connection between me as a private person and the stuff that I think about on the page.

  Chang-Rae Lee

  Writing, Thinking, Perspective

  Source: therumpus.net

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• Science and religion...are friends, not foes, in the common quest for knowledge. Some people may find this surprising, for there's a feeling throughout our society that religious belief is outmoded, or downright impossible, in a scientific age. I don't agree. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if people in this so-called 'scientific age' knew a bit more about science than many of them actually do, they'd find it easier to share my views.

  John Polkinghorne

  Religious, Knowledge, Science

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• This one guy, the worst guy in the music. The Yanni man. You know Yanni? First of all, anyone who looks like a magician and doesn't do magic, I don't like. I don't even like magic, I hate it. But I love the word, "Ta-da"! I love that word! I don't get to say it, right? I never do any magic. You just can't go around walking, "Ta-da!" "Ta-da!" "Ta-da!" The only time I can say it is when I do something really stupid or surprising. Like if I go out all night drinking and hitting strip clubs and I come home and I still got some money... "Ta-da!" I thought I was broke. Why does my jaw hurt?

  Dave Attell

  Hurt, Stupid, Hate

  "Comedy Central Presents: Dave Attell". Documentary, Comedy, July 10, 1999.

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• One thing that's really interesting is not only the magnitude of the recent immigration into this country, but also its distribution and its investment in the country. About 9.3 percent of the population is now foreign-born [announced by the Census Bureau at over 10 percent a few days later]. What's really surprising is how well distributed those population groups are. Historically, we see new immigrants primarily on the coast and in a few big cities. I think the data are going to show a much wider distribution of the new population groups than we've experienced historically.

  Kenneth Prewitt

  Country, Thinking, Data

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• My characters tend, if wounded, to be emotionally resourceful. Often they're in that way station between when loss happens and when it can be fully comprehended. In the meantime they're fighting to get something back, and occasionally they prevail in surprising ways.

  Tom Barbash

  Character, Fighting, Loss

  Source: therumpus.net

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• What's surprising to me now is that now that I'm talking to a lot of women about this, so many women are doing this. Straight women, lesbian women, bisexual women, poor women, White women, immigrant women. This does not affect one group.

  Staceyann Chin

  Bisexual, Talking, White

  Source: www.ebony.com

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• I always want to keep growing and keep surprising people, and showing them different parts of me.

  Aubrey Plaza

  People, Different, Growing

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