Surprising Quotes - Page 5

• At my 30th birthday party, one of my best friends gave a toast and said I'd been waiting for that day since I was 13. Everyone laughed, but he was right! Life continues to get more fun, more surprising, more delightful.

  Siobhan-Marie O'Connor

  Fun, Party, Waiting

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• The pain, so unexpected and undeserved, had for some reason cleared away the cobwebs. I realized I didn’t hate the cabinet door, I hated my life… My house, my family, my backyard, my power mower. Nothing would ever change; nothing new could ever be expected. It had to end, and it did. Now in the dark world where I dwell, ugly things, and surprising things, and sometimes little wondrous things, spill out in me constantly, and I can count on nothing.

  Philip K. Dick

  Pain, Hate, Dark

  "A Scanner Darkly". Book by Philip K. Dick, 1977.

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• It's always surprising to be reminded that while you're watching and thinking about people, all knowing and superior, they're watching and thinking about you, right back at you.

  Terry Pratchett

  Thinking About You, Knowing, People

  Terry Pratchett (2010). “A Hat Full of Sky: (Discworld Novel 32)”, p.331, Random House

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• The most understandable thing in the world should be how minutes lead to hours, how hours lead to days, how days can make a year. And yet, this neat progression can still be surprising.

  David Levithan

  Years, World, Hours

  David Levithan (2008). “The Realm of Possibility”, p.200, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• Humans were always surprising me.

  Stephenie Meyer

  Humans

  Stephenie Meyer (2009). “The Host”, p.326, Hachette UK

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• I've been very lucky at what's happened in my career to date, but playing something as far from me as possible is an ambition of mine - anything from a mutated baddy in a comic book action thriller, to a detective. If anything, I'd like Gary Oldman's career: he's the perfect example of it. I've love to have a really broad sweep of characters - to be able to do something edgy, surprising and unfashionable.

  Benedict Cumberbatch

  Book, Ambition, Character

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

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• It is not surprising that honest and well-informed experts can disagree about facts. But beyond the disagreement about facts, there is another deeper disagreement about values.

  Freeman Dyson

  Experts, Facts, Honest

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• 

  Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.

  David Hume

  Philosophical, Passion, Eye

  David Hume (2010). “Moral and Political Philosophy”, p.406, Simon and Schuster

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• Desperation can make a person do surprising things.

  Veronica Roth

  Desperation, Persons, Surprising Things

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• I love love
  I love being in love
  I don't care what it does to me
  The Format, in "Inches and Failing".
  Masood, a young lady has fallen in love with me-at least so I judge from her letters. Awkward is it not-awkward and surprising. You would be flattered and twirl your moustache, but I am merely uncomfortable. I wish she would stop, as she is very nice, and I enjoyed being friends. What an ill constructed world this is! Love is always being given where it is not required.

  E. M. Forster

  Life, Nice, Being In Love

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• Seas of blood have been shed for the sake of patriotism. One would expect the harm and irrationality of patriotism to be self-evident to everyone. But the surprising fact is that cultured and learned people not only do not notice the harm and stupidity of patriotism, they resist every unveiling of it with the greatest obstinacy and passion (with no rational grounds), and continue to praise it as beneficent and elevating.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Passion, Self, Blood

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• Poetry operates by raising our curiosity, engaging the mind by degrees to take an interest in the event, keeping that event suspended, and surprising at last with an unexpected catastrophe.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Poetry, Curiosity, Mind

  Sir Joshua Reynolds (1842). “The Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds”, p.142

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• I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.

  John B. S. Haldane

  Ignorance, Knowledge, Reality

  "Possible worlds, and other essays". Book by J. B. S. Haldane, 1927.

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• He asked if he could recite a poem he had written that morning: 'You speak,' he said, 'the language of shooting stars, more surprising than sunrise, more brilliant than the sun, as brief as sunset. I want to follow its trail to eternity.

  Amy Tan

  Morning, Stars, Sunset

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• She was the first person on either side of her family to go to college, and she held herself to insanely high standards. She worried a lot about whether she was good enough. It was surprising to see how relieved she seemed whenever I told her how amazing she was. I wanted her to feel strong and free. She was beautiful when she was free.

  Rob Sheffield

  Beautiful, Strong, College

  Rob Sheffield (2007). “Love Is a Mix Tape: Life, Loss, and What I Listened To”, p.67, Crown Archetype

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• Elena?" "Yes, unless Nick found a woman in the forest, which I suppose wouldn't be too surprising.

  Kelley Armstrong

  Forests, Found

  Kelley Armstrong (2009). “Frostbitten”, p.290, Random House Canada

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• The first symptom of true love in a man is timidity, in a young woman, boldness. This is surprising, and yet nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach each other and assuming each the other's qualities.

  Victor Hugo

  Sex, Simple, Men

  Victor Hugo (2015). “Les Misérables”, p.1167, Booklassic

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• I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite - only a sense of existence. Well, anything for variety. I am ready to try this for the next ten thousand years, and exhaust it. How sweet to think of! my extremities well charred, and my intellectual part too, so that there is no danger of worm or rot for a long while. My breath is sweet to me. O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Thanksgiving, Running, Sweet

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.373, Penguin

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• Follow the rules whenever possible. That makes it a lot more surprising when you break them.

  Mira Grant

  Break

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• ...is it surprising that today we have become so morally blind (for wickedness blinds) that we save the baby whales at great cost, and murder millions of unborn children?

  Alice von Hildebrand

  Baby, Children, Whales

  Alice Von Hildebrand (2002). “The Privilege of Being a Woman”, Ignatius Press

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• What is both surprising and delightful is that the spectators are allowed, and even expected, to join in the vocal part of the game...There is no reason why the field should not try to put the batsman off his stroke at the critical moment by neatly timed disparagements of his wife's fidelity and his mother's respectability.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Baseball, Mother, Games

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• Golf is said to be an humbling game, but it is surprising how many people are either not aware of their weaknesses of else reckless of consequences.

  Bobby Jones

  Golf, Games, People

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• If little else, the brain is an educational toy. Why it may be a frustrating play thing - one whose finer points recede just when you think you are mastering them - it is nonetheless perpetually fascinating, frequently surprising, occasionally rewarding, and it comes already assembled. [...] Alas! the brain is a toy that plays games of its own. Its very most favorite game is the one-thing-leads-to-another game.

  Tom Robbins

  Philosophy, Educational, Thinking

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• If an unusual necessity forces us onward, a surprising thing occurs. The fatigue gets worse up to a certain point, when, gradually or suddenly, it passes away and we are fresher than before!

  William James

  Perseverance, Passing Away, Unusual

  William James, Robert D Richardson (2010). “The Heart of William James”, p.267, Harvard University Press

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• There is seemingly so little love shared in this world, it is not surprising that we ask, "Where have all the lovers gone?" Since love is the most vital energy for good that is within our power to utilize, it is puzzling why we so seldom do so. Love is just a useless, abstract idea until we put it into action...unless we are always actively living in love, we are not utilizing the greatest gift we have been given and which we, in turn, have to offer.

  Leo Buscaglia

  Love You, Love Is, Ideas

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