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

— Mary Renault , book The Charioteer

Source: The Charioteer

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Mary Renault 31

English novelist 1905–1983

David Koch

“Hope for the best, be prepared for the worse. Life is shocking, but you must never appear to be shocked. For no matter how bad it is it could be worse and no matter how good it is it could be better.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

“(The Woman Who Does Everything Better Than You) …it's a worse shock to lose one of your five homes than it is to lose your only home. I'm sure psychologists will back me up on this.”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 87

“There are times when the kindness of strangers only makes things worse because one realizes how badly one is in need of kindness and that the only source is a stranger.”

Nicole Krauss book Great House

Source: Great House

“Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns to be amused rather than shocked.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

Not Browning, but a misquotation from Pearl Buck's China, Past and Present: "Ah well, perhaps one has to be very old before one learns how to be amused rather than shocked".
Misattributed

“[The] kind of thinking […] which refuses to make distinctions among artists on the basis of color or nationality or gender, which insists on inclusion rather than exclusion, is hardly fashionable with the current tribalism known as multiculturalism and cultural diversity. But it represents […] the only kind of thinking that can prepare the way for great art, and builds the path to a reconciled society.”

Robert Brustein (1927) American writer

"More Noise Than Funk", The New Republic (3/4/1996) - review of the George C. Wolfe / Savion Glover musical production Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk at the Public Theatre in New York