Unexpected Quotes - Page 31

• What we have here is an unexpected touchdown on the runway of the heart.

  Tom Robbins

  Heart, Still Life With Woodpecker, Runway

  Tom Robbins (2003). “Still Life with Woodpecker”, p.31, Bantam

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• It‘s funny how, when things seem the darkest, moments of beauty present themselves in the most unexpected places.

  Karen Marie Moning

  Moments, Unexpected Places, Seems

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• ...So please, be tolerant of those who describe a sporting moment as their best ever. We do not lack imagination, nor have we had sad and barren lives; it is just that real life is paler, duller, and contains less potential for unexpected delirium.

  Nick Hornby

  Real, Imagination, Life Is

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• But sometimes, in tight corners, when your back is against the wall and the world is against you, you have to fight back in unexpected ways.

  Caroline B. Cooney

  Wall, Fighting, World

  Caroline B. Cooney (2011). “The Vampire's Promise”, p.483, Scholastic Inc.

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• Suddenly his expression turned to alarm. He sprinted toward us. For a moment I had an absurd vision of myself on the cover of one of Gran’s old romance novels, where the damsel wilts into the arms of one half-dressed beefy guy while another stands by,casting her longing looks. Oh, the horrible choices a girl must make! I wished I’d had a moment to clean up. I was still covered in dried river muck, twine, and grass, like I’d been tarred and feathered. Then Anubis pushed past me and gripped Walt’s shoulders. Well…that was unexpected.

  Rick Riordan

  Girl, Past, Expression

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• At the edge of chaos, unexpected outcomes occur. The risk to survival is severe.

  Michael Crichton

  Risk, Survival, Outcomes

  Michael Crichton (1997). “The Lost World”, Knopf

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• But when you have order, you don't need Gods. When everything is well ordered and disciplined then nothing is unexpected. If you understand everything,' I said carefully, 'then there's no room left for magic. It's only when you're lost and frightened and in the dark that you call on the Gods, and they like us to call on them. It makes them feel powerful, and that's why they like us to live in chaos.

  Bernard Cornwell

  Powerful, Dark, Order

  Bernard Cornwell (1998). “Enemy of God: A Novel of Arthur”, p.48, Macmillan

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• I'm not an easy lay, Alexion” He actually smiled a real smile at her. It was charming and unexpected. "I am.

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Real, Easy, Charming

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2010). “Sins of the Night: A Dark-Hunter Novel”, p.100, Macmillan

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• Evaluate. Long experience had taught me to evaluate and assess. When the unexpected gets dumped on you, don’t waste time. Don’t figure out how or why it happened. Don’t recriminate. Don’t figure out whose fault it is. Don’t work out how to avoid the same mistake next time. All of that you do later. If you survive.

  Lee Child

  Mistake, Work Out, Long

  FaceBook post by Lee Child from Aug 11, 2015

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• its fun to do the unexpected.

  Walt Disney

  Fun

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• Our mania for rational explanations obviously has its roots in our fear of metaphysics, for the two were always hostile brothers. Hence, anything unexpected that approaches us from the dark realm is regarded either as coming from outside and, therefore, as real, or else as a hallucination and, therefore, not true. The idea that anything could be real or true which does not come from outside has hardly begun to dawn on contemporary man.

  Carl Jung

  Brother, Real, Dark

  Carl Gustav Jung (1964). “Civilization in transition”

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• Always take the most unexpected route

  Jennifer Estep

  Routes, Gin Blanco

  Jennifer Estep (2012). “Widow's Web”, p.3, Simon and Schuster

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• Bidding the wizard farewell, he turned to his daughter, who held up her finger and said, “Daddy, look — one of the gnomes actually bit me!” “How wonderful! Gnome saliva is enormously beneficial!” said Mr. Lovegood, seizing Luna’s outstretched finger and examining the bleeding puncture marks. “Luna, my love, if you should feel any burgeoning talent today — perhaps an unexpected urge to sing opera or to declaim in Mermish — do not repress it! You may have been gifted by the Gernumblies!” Ron, passing them in the opposite direction, let out a loud snort.

  J. K. Rowling

  Daughter, Farewell, Opposites

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• That's the past for you. Not only does it come back at the most unexpected, and inconvenient, times but it's set in stone.

  Jeffery Deaver

  Past, Doe, Stones

  Jeffery Deaver (2011). “Edge”, p.522, Simon and Schuster

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• When I wake, I have a brief, delicious feeling of happiness that is somehow connected with Peeta. Happiness, of course, is a complete absurdity at this point, since at the rate things are going, I'll be dead in a day. And that's the best-case scenario, if I'm able to eliminate the rest of the field, including myself, and get Peeta crowned as the winner of the Quarter Quell. Still, the sensation's so unexpected and sweet I cling to it, if only for a few moments. Before the gritty sand, the hot sun, and my itching skin demand a return to reality.

  Suzanne Collins

  Sweet, Reality, Feelings

  Suzanne Collins (2013). “The Hunger Games Complete Trilogy”, p.497, Scholastic UK

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• The lesson? To respond to the unexpected and hurtful behavior of others with something more than a wipe of the glasses, to see it as a chance to expand our understanding.

  Alain de Botton

  Glasses, Understanding, Hurtful

  Alain De Botton (1997). “How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not a Novel”, Pantheon

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• I don't know what God is, or what God had in mind when the universe was set in motion. In fact, I don't know if God even exists, although I confess that I sometimes find myself praying in times of great fear, or despair, or astonishment at a display of unexpected beauty.

  Jon Krakauer

  Mind, Despair, Astonishment

  Jon Krakauer (2013). “Under The Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith”, p.304, Pan Macmillan

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• There is only one kind of shock worse than the totally unexpected: the expected for which one has refused to prepare.

  Mary Renault

  Kind, Shock, Expected

  Mary Renault (2013). “The Charioteer: A Virago Modern Classic”, p.71, Hachette UK

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• The hybridoma technology was a by-product of basic research. Its success in practical applications is to a large extent the result of unexpected and unpredictable properties of the method. It thus represents another clear-cut example of the enormous practical impact of an investment in research which might not have been considered commercially worthwhile, or of immediate medical relevance. It resulted from esoteric speculations, for curiosity's sake, only motivated by a desire to understand nature.

  Cesar Milstein

  Success, Nature, Cutting

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• Astronomy may be revolutionized more than any other field of science by observations from above the atmosphere. Study of the planets, the Sun, the stars, and the rarified matter in space should all be profoundly influenced by measurements from balloons, rockets, probes and satellites. ... In a new adventure of discovery no one can foretell what will be found, and it is probably safe to predict that the most important new discovery that will be made with flying telescopes will be quite unexpected and unforeseen.

  Lyman Spitzer

  Stars, Adventure, Science

  Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 17, No. 5, p. 191, 194, May 1961.

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• The progress of science has always been the result of a close interplay between our concepts of the universe and our observations on nature. The former can only evolve out of the latter and yet the latter is also conditioned greatly by the former. Thus in our exploration of nature, the interplay between our concepts and our observations may sometimes lead to totally unexpected aspects among already familiar phenomena.

  Tsung-Dao Lee

  Nature, Science, Progress

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• The test of a theory is its ability to cope with all the relevant phenomena, not its a priori 'reasonableness'. The latter would have proved a poor guide in the development of science, which often makes progress by its encounter with the totally unexpected and initially extremely puzzling.

  John Polkinghorne

  Science, Progress, Encounters

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• The Unexpected stalks a farm in big boots like a vagrant bent on havoc. Not every farmer is an inventor, but the good ones have the seeds of invention within them. Economy and efficiency move their relentless tinkering and yet the real motive often seems to be aesthetic. The mind that first designed a cutter bar is not far different from a mind that can take the intractable steel of an outsized sickle blade and make it hum in the end. The question is how to reduce the simplicity that constitutes a problem ("It's simple; it's broke.") to the greater simplicity that constitutes a solution.

  Verlyn Klinkenborg

  Real, Moving, Science

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• The experiment left no doubt that, as far as accuracy of measurement went, the resistance disappeared. At the same time, however, something unexpected occurred. The disappearance did not take place gradually but abruptly. From 1/500 the resistance at 4.2K, it could be established that the resistance had become less than a thousand-millionth part of that at normal temperature. Thus the mercury at 4.2K has entered a new state, which, owing to its particular electrical properties, can be called the state of superconductivity.

  Heike Kamerlingh Onnes

  Science, Doubt, Owing

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• Turned the wrong way around, the relentless unforeseen was what we schoolchildren studied in "History", harmless history, where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable. The terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides, turning a disaster into an epic.

  Philip Roth

  Epic, Pages, Way

  FaceBook post by Philip Roth from Dec 22, 2016

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