Unexpected Quotes - Page 18

• I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of 'em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures.

  Gary Snyder

  Girl, Children, Writing

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• The jostling of young minds against each other has this wonderful attribute, that one can never foresee the spark, nor predict the flash. What will spring up in a moment? Nobody knows.

  Victor Hugo

  Laughter, Spring, Doors

  "Les misérables".

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• To say that she had a book is to say that her solitude did not press upon her; for her love of knowledge had a fertilizing quality and her imagination was strong. There was at this time, however, a want of lightness in her situation, which the arrival of an unexpected visitor did much to dispel.

  Henry James

  Strong, Book, Imagination

  Henry James (1994). “Henry James: selected works”, Random House Value Publishing

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• All our days are marked with/ unexpected/ affronts--some/ disastrous, others/ less so/ but the process is/ wearing and/ continuous./ Attrition rules./ Most give/ way/ leaving/ empty spaces/ where people should/ be.

  Charles Bukowski

  Space, People, Giving

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• Nothing again. No one is listening. No one is waiting to hear the kicking of a man above. It is unexpected. You have no ears for someone like me.

  Dave Eggers

  Men, Waiting, Listening

  Dave Eggers (2007). “What Is the What”, p.142, Vintage

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• "You...you lost your faith?"
  "No...just my convictions. I still very much believe in God- just not a god who condones human tithing."
  Lev begins to feel himself choking up with an unexpected flood of feeling, all the emotions that had been building up throughout their talk-throughout the weeks-arriving all at once like a sonic boom.
  "I never knew there was a choice".

  Neal Shusterman

  Believe, Building Up, Choices

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• Out of the red and silver and the long cry of alarm to the poet who survives in all human beings, as the child survives in him; to this poet she threw an unexpected ladder in the middle of the city and ordained, 'Climb!

  Anais Nin

  Children, Cities, Long

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• In my defense, the corpse was entirely unexpected.

  Mira Grant

  Defense, Corpses

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• Harshness vanished. A sudden softness has replaced the meadows' wintry grey. Little rivulets of water changed their singing accents. Tendernesses, hesitantly, reach toward the earth from space, and country lanes are showing these unexpected subtle risings that find expression in the empty trees.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Country, Spring, Expression

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• After she was gone there would be no one who knew the whole of her life. She did not even know the whole of it! Perhaps she should have written some of it down...but really what would have been the point in that? Everything passed, she would too. This perspective offered her an unexpected clarity she nearly enjoyed, but even with this new clarity the world offered no more explanation for itself than it ever had.

  Susan Minot

  Should Have, Perspective, Would Be

  Susan Minot (2010). “Evening”, p.17, Vintage

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• Peace, tremulous, unexpected, sent a taproot out of nowhere into Morgan's heart.

  Patricia A. McKillip

  Heart

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• I am simply impressed by the unexpected insights which shower down on me when my job is to imagine, as contrasted with the woodenly familiar ideas which clutter my desk when my job is to tell the truth.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Jobs, Ideas, Telling The Truth

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• After a childhood of hungering to be an adult, my hunger had passed. Unexpected fates had begun to catch my notice. These middle-aged women seemed very tired to me, as if hope had been wrung out of them and replaced with a deathly, walking sort of sleep.

  Lorrie Moore

  Tired, Sleep, Fate

  Lorrie Moore (2009). “A Gate at the Stairs”, p.36, Vintage

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• How do you know all this? Jeez, Tory, you’re a kid. Act like it. (Geary) (Tory reached out and punched her on the arm.) Ow! What was that for? (Geary) Unexpected and irrational emotional outbursts. Isn’t that what teenagers are supposed to do? Oh, and sulk. A lot. (Tory)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Teenager, Kids, Emotional

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• Well, you can go on looking forward," said Gandalf. "There may be many unexpected feasts ahead of you.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Optimism, Goes On, May

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Lord of the Rings: One Volume”, p.205, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• If you know something bad is coming, can't you plan to avoid it or try to do something differently?" said Charles. Probably", said the Cartographer, "but then the good events would have no flavor. The joy you find in life is paid for by suffering that comes later, just as sometimes, the suffering is redeemed by a joy unexpected. That's the trade that makes a life worth living.

  James A. Owen

  Joy, Suffering, Trying

  James A. Owen (2015). “Dawn of the Dragons: Here, There Be Dragons; The Search for the Red Dragon”, p.192, Simon and Schuster

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• The pain was as unexpected as a thunderclap in a clear sky. Eddis's chest tightened, as something closed around her heart. A deep breath might have calmed her, but she couldn't draw one. She wondered if she was ill, and she even thought briefly that she might have been poisoned. She felt Attolia reach out and take her hand. To the court it was unexceptional, hardly noticed, but to Eddis it was an anchor, and she held on to it as if to a lifeline. Sounis was looking at her with concern. Her responding smile was artificial.

  Megan Whalen Turner

  Pain, Heart, Hands

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• Mental illness doesn't choose the most talented or the smartest or the richest or the poorest. It shows no mercy and often arrives like an unexpected storm, dropping an endless downpour on young dreams.

  Steve Lopez

  Dream, Storm, Mental Illness

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• What? Is that boy crazy?" "Most young men his age are somewhat crazy, I think," Sazed said with a smile. "However, this is hardly unexpected. Haven't you noticed how he stares at you when you enter a room?" "I thought he was just creepy.

  Brandon Sanderson

  Crazy, Thinking, Boys

  Brandon Sanderson (2011). “Mistborn Trilogy”, p.366, Macmillan

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• I think she is going to find you too old... Yes that was it, the moment she said it I knew it was true, and the revelation caused me no surprise, it was like the echo of a dull, not unexpected shock. The age difference was the last taboo, the final limit, all the stronger for the fact that it remained the last and had replaced all the others. In the modern world you could be a swinger, bi, trans, zoo into S&M, but it was forbidden to be old.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Zoos, Thinking, Echoes

  Michel Houellebecq (2006). “The Possibility of an Island”, p.148, Vintage

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• The Lord help us!' he soliloquised in an undertone of peevish displeasure, while relieving me of my horse: looking, meantime, in my face so sourly that I charitably conjectured he must have need of divine aid to digest his dinner, and his pious ejaculation had no reference to my unexpected advent.

  Emily Bronte

  Horse, Ejaculation, Needs

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.370, Penguin

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• Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me. But a shift has occurred since I stepped up to take Prim's place, and now it seems I have become someone precious. At first one, then another, then almost every member of the crowd touches the three middle fingers of their left hand to their lips and holds it out to me. It is an old and rarely used gesture of our district, occasionally seen at funerals. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means good-bye to someone you love.

  Suzanne Collins

  Mean, Thinking, Hands

  "The Hunger Games". Book by Suzanne Collins, 2008.

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• [The purpose of flight research] is to separate the real from the imagined problems and to make known the overlooked and the unexpected.

  Hugh Latimer Dryden

  Real, Science, Imagination

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• If asked how to cope with a great host of the enemy in orderly array and on the point of marching to the attack, I should say: "Begin by seizing something which your opponent holds dear; then he will be amenable to your will." Rapidity is the essence of war: take advantage of the enemy's unreadiness, make your way by unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots.

  Sun Tzu

  Art, Military, War

  Sun Tzu, Wu Qi, Wei Liao, Sima Rangju, Jiang Ziya (2017). “The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China”, p.139, Arcturus Publishing

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• In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which, because of the irreversibility of the action process can be expected and even calculated, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.

  Hannah Arendt

  Forgiveness, Revenge, Character

  Hannah Arendt (2013). “The Human Condition: Second Edition”, p.241, University of Chicago Press

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