Unexpected Quotes - Page 26

• We always seem to be surprised by events, especially by catastrophes, but also by wonderful events. Look at 1990, the year that the Soviet Union collapsed and apartheid in South Africa collapsed and the Berlin Wall came down. I don't know anyone who foresaw those events. It seems to me that as a species we are constantly trying to adapt ourselves to the unexpected. In the meantime, we talk as if we are in control, and we're not. This seems to me to be the truth about the twentieth century.

  Doris Lessing

  Wall, Trying, Wonderful

  Source: progressive.org

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• Language is always ambivalent. Its forms mutate and connect in unexpected ways. It's hard to instrumentalize language. But I think it's better to explore linguistic potentials than to keep on using language that's past its expiration date.

  McKenzie Wark

  Past, Thinking, Language

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• Never mistake a clearer view for a short distance just because the technology looks like it's about to arrive in the very near future. Chances are there will be some surprises and in the long run even the most expected of futures tends to arrive late and in completely unexpected ways.

  Paul Saffo

  Running, Mistake, Distance

  Source: bigthink.com

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• I think it is really helpful to see the beauty in every situation. I guess it's being able to see it in unexpected places. If you're fed too much of an image of what beauty is then you might define it as a certain specific thing, but when you have your own idea of what it is, or your own feelings of what beauty is, then it becomes so wide and so indefinable.

  Yukimi Nagano

  Thinking, Feelings, Helpful

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Picking roles, my way of choosing them is vastly different now than it was a long time ago, but I can only be that way now because of what I've learned from the past. So I'm choosing now not to choose any work, because when you've had such a nice ride, unexpected rides and fulfilling rides, you really don't want to take a step backwards. It's really made me satisfied in a way that I wasn't looking for, but I was blessed with it and now I feel really full, in a good way, where I don't need to rush out and go find something.

  Sandra Bullock

  Nice, Blessed, Past

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• To me, a performance is a military operation; it requires so much planning, and then ripping up the plan the minute you get there because you have no idea what the audience is feeling. I'm very much an entertainer, and sensitive to the audience's perception of me. I often have to do unexpected things, even for myself.

  Chilly Gonzales

  Military, Feelings, Perception

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• In terms of performance, something unexpected is always good, it's preferable if it's unexpectedly good. But unexpectedly bad has a lot to say for it as well. It's always nice to be able to look back on a show and say, "Oh, that's the night that this happened," and a lot of the worst memories are better than the shows with no memories. A good rehearsal is a lot harder to describe. A lot of rehearsals that end up feeling best are the ones where something really bad was happening, and you just kind of got past it and fought through it. Just dealing with things that are inevitable. 

  Ira Kaplan

  Memories, Nice, Past

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• I think most films are too predictable. They follow familiar patterns. I suppose audiences like to know where they stand but I like films that take me by surprise, take unexpected turns and twists.

  John Boorman

  Thinking, Surprise, Film

  Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

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• What's so great about my business is that every day is different than the day prior. Today, the industry bears little resemblance to the one I joined 30 years ago, which is what's so exciting about it. But the one thing that hasn't changed is the notion that a successful business model is one that has the ability to respond positively to the unexpected shifts in the winds as they continue to present themselves.

  Kenneth Cole

  Successful, Today, Different

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Just watching an actor in front you really provokes you in such a sudden, unexpected way. You can't ask for anything more from someone you're working with than that.

  Dan Byrd

  Provoking

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• India is a place where one of the great pleasures for a foreigner is that you're constantly surprised. Everywhere you look is something that is either funny, or very moving, but there is always so much that is so unexpected.

  Wes Anderson

  Moving, Pleasure

  Source: film.avclub.com

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• We all live in an ongoing series of calamities. I don't know of any individual who doesn't have a series of calamities. Life doesn't operate where, you make a certain amount of money, you pay your bills, you move on from day-to-day-to-day. No! What happens is, you make your money, you pay your bills, and then a new bill comes up that's completely unexpected.

  Neal Gabler

  Moving, Individual

  Source: www.slate.com

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• Things may not go to plan, but the unexpected throws up experiences and opportunities you had never dreamed of. I didn't get into Oxford the first time. I was absolutely heartbroken. Instead of going anywhere else I took a year out and reapplied. I wish I'd had some kind of framework for that year out, instead I worked in a Virgin Megastore. But looking back it taught me a lot, and meant my university experience was different, not worse. In the end, your grades aren't as important as the people you meet, and you can meet them anywhere.

  John Robins

  Heartbroken, Opportunity, People

  "Ask John: university advice from comedian John Robins". The Telegraph interview, www.telegraph.co.uk. August 16, 2017.

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• The difference between "winners" and "losers" is not whether they face obstacles and setbacks - we all do, and it is inevitable that plans do not unfold exactly as imagined or that unexpected events surprise us or that a few mistakes happen. The real difference is that "winners" bounce back from a fumble or a loss by refusing to panic, analyzing the situation and looking for positive actions they can take to correct the problem, and then go on to resume winning.

  Rosabeth Moss Kanter

  Real, Mistake, Loss

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• A real strategy is not bottom up because it deals with issues that require unexpected or unusual types action, especially of coordination among units.

  Richard P. Rumelt

  Real, Action, Strategy

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• We've become so postmodern as an audience and we're so familiar with the style of horror movies that they all kind of feel the same. I think if you can do something a little bit unexpected, then you as a filmmaker end up being one step ahead again. I think that's the key.

  Ti West

  Thinking, Style, Kind

  Source: film.avclub.com

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• Obviously, when you're in theater, you have to be in character. You have to prepare for the unexpected. You have to be able to react to things that don't necessarily happen every night, or aren't supposed to happen every night. And you have to react to it in character. In six months, 192 shows, those things did happen. And the experience of that, the ability to stay in character, I feel like I've learned a great deal.

  Matthew Lewis

  Character, Night, Ability

  Source: film.avclub.com

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• I think that feeling of reward comes from being able to find sometimes an unexpected reflection or insight that seems to transcend the description itself, where you actually realize you're concluding something that is a point of view, that may come across and actually touch people's conscience or minds in a way that could change, at least if not things, change points of view.

  Jon Lee Anderson

  Reflection, Thinking, Feelings

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• It's interesting to think about connecting the dots within an archive in a different way than linearly or teleologically. It's a great delight to make art or use language or just have ideas, and put them together in a very unexpected way. Art gets categorized historically, geographically, by medium, not necessarily by concept or repeating imagery, or feminism or femininity.

  Chitra Ganesh

  Art, Thinking, Interesting

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• To become "memorable" do things that are somewhat unexpected. Dress, or talk, in ways that draw attention. And mostly, don't follow all the "rule for behavior" so closely.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Memorable, Attention, Behavior

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• I will say that the difference was that when you're an Army journalist, as opposed to a civilian correspondent covering the military, you're very often either a public relations agent or expected to perform that role. I would say that one of the most unexpected benefits of that job was being taught to never try to cover anything up, but rather to get any bad information out right away, so that there would be nothing more to come out later. This was a wonderful lesson to be taught because often the effort to cover up a story becomes a bigger story than the original one.

  Clarence Page

  Military, Army, Effort

  "Clarence Page: The 'Culture Worrier' interview". Interview with Kam Williams, baystatebanner.com. March 12, 2015.

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• perfectionism is a slow death. if everything were to turn out just like i would want it to, just like i would plan for it to, then i would never experience anything new; my life would be an endless repetition of stale successes. when i make a mistake i experience something unexpected.... when i have listened to my mistakes i have grown.

  Hugh Prather

  Life, Mistake, Would Be

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• Wit is the unexpected copulation of ideas.

  Patrick O'Brian

  Ideas, Wit

  Patrick O'Brian (1990). “Post Captain (Vol. Book 2) (Aubrey/Maturin Novels)”, p.43, W. W. Norton & Company

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• I also read about Heathcliff's unexpected three-year career in Hollywood under the name Buck Stallion and his eventual return to the pages of Wuthering Heights.

  Jasper Fforde

  Years, Names, Careers

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• it is this broken road with pitfalls and sharp turns and unexpected traverses that has brought me joy and adventure.

  Alice Walker

  Adventure, Broken, Joy

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