Surprising Quotes - Page 17

• The power of telly is surprising. If you're in a six-part series, you're famous while it's on - people point in the street. Two weeks later it all goes back to normal.

  Paul McGann

  Two, People, Six

  "This much I know" by Paul McGann, www.theguardian.com. June 04, 2011.

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• It does surprise me that intelligent people in the 21st century could claim that if you respond to the terrorists with force, you spawn terrorism, but if you appease them, you somehow tame them. This argument, as I said, is very interesting, and very surprising.

  Meles Zenawi

  Intelligent, Interesting, People

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• To walk into Bill Olsen's poems is to enter a mind so weirdly curious, you can't be released to sadness, not yet: it's just too surprising.  But this book-half microscope, half telescope-shadows grief, our shared and ordinary life where an old neighbor obsessively gathers twigs to wish back the tree, where the moon is regularly ‘sawn in half,’ where sprinklers give off ‘little wet speeches.’  What else?  It's brilliantly instead and odd.

  Marianne Boruch

  Grief, Book, Sadness

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• It's really surprising that what you put on paper, people will believe.

  Chaske Spencer

  Believe, People, Paper

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• England is strictly class-based. What's surprising is how many films are still made with a load of people in silly frocks running around gardens and talking in middle-class accents.

  Stephen Daldry

  Running, Silly, Garden

  "Stephen Daldry Dances to Success with 'Billy Elliot'". IndieWire Interview, www.indiewire.com. October 17, 2000.

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• It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and - even more surprising - it takes the whole of life to learn how to die.

  Seneca the Younger

  Learning, Whole, Dies

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• Put the right pitching mechanics together with good health, and there's nothing surprising about lasting a long time.

  Nolan Ryan

  Baseball, Long, Together

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• I knew I'd miss you. But the surprising thing is, you never leave me. I never forget a thing. Every kind of love, it seems, is the only one. It doesn't happen twice. And I never expected that you could have a broken heart and love with it too, so much that it doesn't seem broken at all.

  Jodi Lynn Anderson

  Love, Heart, Broken

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• Country' and 'city' are very powerful words, and this is not surprising when we remember how much they seem to stand for in the experience of human communities. In English, 'country' is both a nation and a part of a 'land'; 'the country' can be the whole society or its rural area. In the long history of human settlements, this connection between the land from which directly or indirectly we all get our living and the achievements of human society has been deeply known.

  Raymond Williams

  Country, Powerful, Land

  Raymond Williams (1975). “The Country and the City”, p.1, Oxford University Press, USA

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• With support jobs moving to China and India, it's not surprising that English-speaking countries' top frustration revolves around the difficulty of understanding customer service representatives. However, even if the level of customer service is exceptional, the extent to which poorly-understood accents trump quality of service speaks to English-speaking customers' growing intolerance of non-native speech, more so than in other countries.

  Bob Hayes

  Country, Jobs, Moving

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• The question, 'How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on this scale?' is therefore very much around at the moment, and it would be surprising if it weren't - indeed it would be wrong if it weren't.

  Rowan Williams

  Believe, Suffering, Would Be

  "Archbishop: 'It should shake our faith in God'" by Martin Bright, www.theguardian.com. January 1, 2005.

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• It is a little surprising given the strength of the economy that there is a perception - at least among some of the public - that the economy is not very good.

  Edward Lazear

  Perception, Littles, Economy

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• Keep pace with the times. . . . Find new and surprising ways to teach girls how to develop every gift and grace of true womanhood.

  Elmina Shepard Taylor

  Girl, Grace, Pace

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• Of all the wonderful things in the wonderful universe of God, nothing seems to me more surprising than the planting of a seed in the blank earth and the result thereof.

  Julie Moir Messervy

  Garden, Earth, Wonderful

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• When schemes are laid in advance, it is surprising how often the circumstances will fit in with them.

  William Osler

  Planning, Fit, Schemes

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• It is indeed surprising that a man inspite of his belief in the Fire of Jahannum is still able to laugh, and inspite of his belief in Maut he is able to be happy. Inspite of believing in the Reckoning, he commits evil deeds. Inspite of believing in Taqdeer, he grieves. Inspite of observing the world with its changes, he feels contented with it. Inspite of believing in Jannat, he refrains from righteous deeds.

  Moses

  Wisdom, Believe, Islamic

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• I went through one period when I smoked a surprising, a really breath-taking, amount of grass almost every night.

  David Letterman

  Weed, Night, Grass

  "David Letterman's 1984 Playboy Interview. A Candid Conversation with the Comedy Genius In His Youth". Playboy Interview, playboysfw.kinja.com. April 3, 2014.

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• This year has begun hopefully for right thinkers. After all these centuries of feudal barbarism and political slavery, it is surprising to see how the word of 'liberty' sets minds on fire.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Fire, Years, Political

  Napoleon Bonaparte (2010). “The Corsican: The Virtual Diary of Napoleon Bonaparte”, p.4, Fireship Press

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• Melrose is the finest remaining specimen of Gothic architecture in Scotland. Some of the sculptured flowers in the cloister arches are remarkably beautiful and delicate, and the two windows - the south and east oriels - are of a lightness and grace of execution really surprising.

  Bayard Taylor

  Beautiful, Flower, Scotland

  Bayard Taylor (1875). “Views A-foot: Or, Europe Seen with Knapsack and Staff”, p.69

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• End-of-the-world stories tend to ring true. I've always been drawn to them, but as I wrote my own, I found surprising pleasure in creating a world that is so radically changed, yet where there's so much meaning and value in every small and ordinary thing we have, and take for granted: hot showers, enough food, friends, routines.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Creating, Hot, Stories

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• The image of the frontier is probably one of the oldest images of mankind, and it is not surprising that we should find it hard to get rid of.

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Land, Should, Mankind

  Kenneth E. Boulding, Harold J. Barnett, Rene Dubos, Leonard J. Duhl, Ralph Turvey, Roland N. McKean, Allen V. Kneese, M. Mason Gaffney, Gilbert F. White, David Lowenthal, Norton E. Long, Jacob H. Beuscher (1966). “Environmental Quality in a Growing Economy”

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• Part of the power of Emerson's individualism is his insistence, at crucial moments, that individualism does not mean isolation or self-sufficiency. This is not a paradox, for it is only the strong individual who can frankly concede the sometimes surprising extent of his own dependence.

  Robert D. Richardson

  Strong, Mean, Thinking

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• The most important thing in comedy - apart from empathy, which I think is important even if disguised - is surprise. I like surprising people with the fact that something's even a joke at all.

  Ricky Gervais

  Thinking, People, Empathy

  "Ricky Gervais: The ESQ+A". Interview with Scott Raab, www.esquire.com. January 12, 2012.

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• It is not surprising that in talking about uncertainty we should lean heavily on facts, just as the court of law does when interrogating witnesses. Facts form a sort of bedrock on which we can build the shifting sands of uncertainty.

  Dennis Lindley

  Talking, Law, Doe

  "Understanding Uncertainty". Book by Dennis Lindley (Chapter 2 "Stylistic Questions", p. 19), 2006.

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• Dad is a really surprising guy. Every time I think he's going to be useless, he ends up doing something amazing and saying exactly the right thing.

  Clare Balding

  Dad, Thinking, Guy

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