Quotes about expectation
page 8

“When I get free, I believe I'll show you your spine. I'll hand it to you so casually, politely even, as if expecting you to remark upon it.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dreams of a Dark Warrior

“If you can't control your peanut butter, you can't expect to control your life.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury

Life

“It's not what I expected," he said. "They're far more organized than our intelligence had led us to believe.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Battle for Skandia

Intelligence

“To love someone was not what she had expected. It was like falling from somewhere high up and breaking in half, and only one person having the secret to the puzzle of putting her back together.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

Love, Secret, Personality

“Where we belong is often where we least expect to find ourselves—a place that we may have willed ourselves to forget, but that the heart remembers forever.”

Emily Giffin book Where We Belong

Source: Where We Belong

Heart, Forgetting

“Expect poison from the standing water.”

William Blake book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Source: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Water

“I can't believe that I changed so little. I expected to look old and hollow and gray, but I guess it's only me on the inside that has shriveled and deteriorated.”

Beatrice Sparks (1917–2012) American writer

Source: Go Ask Alice

Change

“Value is not made of money, but a tender balance of expectation and longing.”

Barbara Kingsolver book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

Source: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

Money

“I find my life is a lot easier the lower I keep my expectations.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Life

“Look behind you: What have you learned?
Look around you: What is happening to others?
Look above you: What does God expect of you?
Look besides you: What resources are available to you?”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

God, Learning

“I certainly hadn't expected to walk away from today's trip with joint custody of a miniature dragon.”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

“If you never ask yourself any questions about the meaning of a passage, you cannot expect the book to give you any insight you don't already possess”

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator

Books, Question

“He would find a way to make it work, because he finally understood that sometimes you have to raise your expectations. And sometimes you need to make a claim on the world and the people you love to get what you most desire”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Wizard Heir

Love, People, World, Way

“Maybe you expected marriage to be perfect - I guess that's where you and I are different. See, I thought it would be all about making mistakes, but doing it with someone who's there to remind you what you learned along the way.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

Marriage, Way, Learning, Perfection

“Bigots see something they expect and then they stop thinking about what is in front of them. It's probably how they got to be bigots in the first place.”

Jim Butcher book White Night

Source: White Night

Thinking

“He was still frowning at the cake, looking at it as if he expected it to sprout dozens of legs and begin scuttling toward him, thin-lipped, teeth bared.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Faefever

“Eventually, I told myself not to expect anything from him, and as a result it has gotten easier for me to take what comes.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

“Never try to impress a woman, because if you do she'll expect you to keep up the standard for the rest of your life.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

Life

“How can we expect people to put value on our work when we don't value ourselves enough to set and hold uncomfortable boundaries?”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Rising Strong

People

“There are certain kinds of deaths that one should not be expected to re-live, certain kinds of connections that are so deep that when broken you feel the snap of the link inside you.”

Jeff VanderMeer book Annihilation

Source: Annihilation

Death, Feeling

“Its a perfectly good face, Sparhawk."
"It covers the front of my head. What else can you expect from a face?”

David Eddings book The Diamond Throne

Source: The Diamond Throne

“Much of what we called "depression" was really dissatisfaction, a result of setting a bar impossibly high or expecting treasures we weren't willing to work for.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: Have a Little Faith: a True Story

“You are your own worst enemy. If you can learn to stop expecting impossible perfection, in yourself and others, you may find the happiness that has always eluded you.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Love in the Afternoon

Happiness, Learning, Perfection

“I expect that you must receive top marks at school, young lady."
Madeleine smiled as she stirred her tea. "There are always rewards for those who state the obvious frequently and with conviction.”

Scott Westerfeld book Touching Darkness

Source: Touching Darkness

School, Smile, Tea

“Second, and far more important: tuck your chin. You're going to get hurt, so expect it and be ready. You may as well see it coming.”

Elizabeth Haydon book Rhapsody: Child of Blood

Source: Rhapsody: Child of Blood

Hurt

“Love is the easiest thing there is. It's the layers of doubt, fear, and expectation that make it complicated.”

Luanne Rice (1955) American author

Source: Beach Girls

Love, Fear

“I never thought meeting you would be this boring. I thought we'd put our Italian emotion into gear and scream the place down. I never expected indifference.”

Melina Marchetta book Looking for Alibrandi

Source: Looking for Alibrandi

Indifference

“It isn't expectations that carry us forward, it's our desire to go on.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Source: Brida

“No one expected me. Everything awaited me.”

Patti Smith Just Kids

Source: Just Kids

“Have you ever noticed that salvation, much like your car keys, is usually found where and when you least expect it? (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Kiss of the Night

Cars

“It is what you don't expect… that most needs looking for.”

Neal Stephenson book Anathem

Source: Anathem

“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 American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

Love, Heart

“To keep your secret is wisdom, but to expect others to keep it is folly.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Wisdom, Secret

“Nothing in this world happens without a reason. That we are all exactly where we are supposed to be, and that the pieces of the puzzle have a tendency to come together when you least expect it.”

Jane Green (1968) British writer

Source: The Beach House

World

“I love everything about Tyler Durden, his courage and his smarts. His nerve. Tyler is funny and charming and forceful and independent, and men look up to him and expect him to change their world. Tyler is capable and free, and I am not.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Love, Men, World, Courage

“Reading at meals is considered rude in polite society, but if you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Reading

“It's scary when it's real. When it's not just thinking about a person, but, like, having a real live person in front of you, with, like, expectations. And wants.”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Thinking, Personality

“It's like my garden, love. Everything grows. Including love. And with that growing everyday how can you expect missing her to ever fade away? Everything builds, including our ability to cope with it. That's how we keep going.”

Cecelia Ahern book Thanks for the Memories

Source: Thanks for the Memories

Love

“Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

“He expects nothing, she thought, because he's never had anything. And nothing was expected of him. He was free in a way she never would be.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Way

“Well, don't expect us to be too impressed. We just saw Finnick Odair in his underwear.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Funny

“Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out is mute. Only chance can speak to us. We read its message much as gypsies read the images made by coffee grounds at the bottom of the cup.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Coffee, Chance, Reading

“How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Source: Marilyn: Her Life In Own Words

World, For women

“To hope for nothing, to expect nothing, to demand nothing. This is analytical despair.”

James Hillman (1926–2011) American psychologist

Source: Suicide and the Soul

Hope, Despair

“I'd kind of expected that kids who knew about the Real World wouldn't act like jock dipwads. Guess I was wrong.”

Lilith Saintcrow (1976) American writer

Source: Betrayals

World

“People who don't expect justice don't have to suffer disappointment.”

Isaac Asimov book The Robots of Dawn

Source: The Robots of Dawn

People, Justice, Disappointment, Suffering

“The whole thing's illusion, [Jacob], and there's nothing wrong with that. It's what people want from us. It's what they expect.”

Sara Gruen book Water for Elephants

Source: Water for Elephants

People

“The expectations of life depend upon diligence the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Source: The Analects of Confucius:

Life, Dependency, Perfection

“Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected. Every war constitutes an irony of situation because its means are so melodramatically disproportionate to its presumed ends.”

Paul Fussell book The Great War and Modern Memory

Source: The Great War and Modern Memory

War

“… a box where she was expected to be sweet and sensitive (but not oversensitive); a box for young and pretty girls who were not as bright or powerful as their boyfriends. A box for people who were not forces to be reckoned with.”

E. Lockhart book The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Source: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

People, Girl, Box

“Put your expectations on God, not on people.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

God, People

“The more God gives you, the more responsible he expects you to be.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

God

“I sent a quick text to Adrian:I honestly hadn’t expected him to be awake this early, so I was surprised to get a response:So typical of him. he wrote back. I didn’t dignify that with a response.”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

“No animal, according to the rules of animal etiquette, is ever expected to do anything strenuous, or heroic, or even moderately active during the off-season of winter.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 4, "Mr. Badger"

Winter, Animals, Season

“A minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Effort, Perfection

“I think they’ll probably put that on my gravestone. ‘He Was Heterosexual and Had Low Expectations.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Alec Lightwood and Jace Herondale, pg. 438
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)
Context: "'Sure, he likes you,' said Alec. 'You're heterosexual and have low expectations of father figures.'
'I think they'll probably put that on my gravestone. "He Was Heterosexual and Had Low Expectations."'"

Thinking

“Expect the unexpected, my mother once said. Because the unexpected most certainly will be expecting you.”

Marjorie M. Liu (1979) American writer

Source: The Iron Hunt

“If you allow your rhythm to be interrupted, you'll create a void. Then to replace what you give up, you'll start to expect and need more from your partner.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

“How would you expect to find community while you intentionally withdraw from it at some point? The disobedient cannot believe; only the obedient believe.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Discipleship

Communication

“He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Innovations
Essays (1625)

Evil, Time

“I expect I shall feel better after tea.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Carry On, Jeeves

Source: Carry on, Jeeves

Feeling, Tea

“No one ever asks a kid for her opinion, but it seems to me that growing up means you stop hoping for the best, and start expecting the worst.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Between the Lines

Hope

“They're fanatics. It's like expecting humanity from a falling rock. It's not going to have a fit of compassion and not crack your skull open.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

“Keep a light, hopeful heart. But expect the worst.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Variant: Keep a light, hopeful heart. But expect the worst.

Hope, Light, Heart

“Goodness," Tessa said to the back of his head. "If you keep seeing Six-Fingered Nigel like this, he'll expect you to declare your intentions.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“Talent is its own expectation, Jim: you either live up to it or it waves a hankie, receding forever.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

“Creative scientists and saints expect revelation and do not fear it. Neither do children. But as we grow up and we are hurt, we learned not to trust.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Children, Fear, Learning, Hurt

“We must never expect discretion in first love: it is accompanied by such excessive joy that unless the joy is allowed to overflow, it will choke you.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Three Musketeers

Source: The Three Musketeers

Love, Joy

“A man will find a single coin in the mud and talk about it for days, but when his inheritance comes and is accounted one percent less than he expected, then he will declare himself cheated.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

Cheating

“He might as well plant an oak in a flower-pot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigour in the soil of his shallow cares!”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff (Ch. XIV).
Source: Wuthering Heights (1847)
Context: You talk of her mind being unsettled - how the devil could it be otherwise, in her frightful isolation? And that insipid, paltry creature attending her from duty and humanity! From pity and charity. He might as well plant an oak in a flower-pot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigour in the soil of his shallow cares!

Imagination, Flowers

“I love and am loved, fully and freely, nothing expected, more than enough received.”

Amy Tan The Hundred Secret Senses

Source: The Hundred Secret Senses

Love

“It was such a weird thing how a breakup stretched much wider than you expected. You didn't just lose a person, but their entire world as well.”

Sarah Dessen book The Moon and More

Source: The Moon and More

World, Personality

“I responded to the gravity of an invisible moon at my core, and I undertook journeys I had not expected to take.”

Mohsin Hamid book The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Source: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

“Look, the point is there's no way to be a hundred percent sure about anyone or anything. So you're left with a choice. Either hope for the best or just expect the worst.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

Hope, Way

“One minute was enough, Tyler said, "A person had to work hard for it, but a minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Effort, Personality, Perfection

“Nothing takes the heart out of a man more than the expectation of failure.”

Robin Hobb book Assassin's Apprentice

Source: Assassin's Apprentice

Failure, Heart

“It may be well to repeat here the saying that old men talk of what they have done, young men of what they are doing, and fools of what they expect to do. The Negro race has a rather large share of the last mentioned class.”

Carter G. Woodson book The Mis-Education of the Negro

Source: The Mis-Education of the Negro

Men, Fools

“The inspector ate only two of my tiny sandwiches: the first because he hadn't expected it to taste so awful; the second, I think, because he'd thought surely the first must have been a mistake.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Faefever

Thinking

“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

“His love for her was a gift he gave her daily, expecting nothing in return. He walked at her side, his love for her a torch to guide her footsteps along the dark path she walked.”

Margaret Weis book Dragons of a Fallen Sun

Source: Dragons of a Fallen Sun

Love

“You cannot expect victory and plan for defeat.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Victory

“Always something new, always something I didn't expect, and sometimes it isn't horrible.”

Robert Jordan The Great Hunt

Source: The Great Hunt

“When you expect the world to end at any moment, you know there is no need to hurry. You take your time, you do your work well.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

World, Time

“Forgive my asking you to use your mind. It is a thing which no novelist should expect of his reader…”

Owen Wister (1860–1938) American writer

Source: The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains

Forgiveness

“Ignorance is hardly unusual, Miss Davar. The longer I live, the more I come to realize that it is the natural state of the human mind. There are many who will strive to defend its sanctity and then expect you to be impressed with their efforts.”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

Nature, Effort

“When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic, yearning for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning that one ever expects to be fulfilled.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

Pleasure, Books

“Because on some level, even though it never turns out to be true, and even though I should know better, I still expect life to be like the movies.”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them

Life

“The charm of your society, my Sparrow, lies in not knowing what you will say next – though one rapidly learns to expect the worst!”

Georgette Heyer book Sylvester

Source: Sylvester

Learning

“If you expect the worst from a person you can never be disappointed.”

Anthony Burgess book The Wanting Seed

Source: The Wanting Seed

Disappointment, Personality

“Revolution is an art that I pursue rather than a goal I expect to achieve. Nor is this a source of dismay; a lost cause can be as spiritually satisfying as a victory.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Art, Victory

“You should never be surprised when someone treats you with respect, you should expect it.”

Sarah Dessen book Keeping the Moon

Source: Keeping the Moon

“Someday, you do not know when, you will be driving down the road and someday, you do not now when, you will make a wrong tun. At the end of the road, when you're least expecting it, he (or indeed she) will be there.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: Margarettown

“You cannot expect stone to be as pliable as clay.”

Anne Brontë book Agnes Grey

Source: Agnes Grey

“She reached into her coat pocket and felt two things she hadn't expected…. One was a wad of cash… she brought out the money. Leo whistled. "Allowance? Piper, your mom rocks!”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Money, Moms

“I am Hel,” she agreed. “Sometimes called Hela, though most mortals dare not speak my name at all. No jokes, Magnus Chase? Who the Hel are you? What the Hel do you want? You look Hela bad. I was expecting more bravado.”

Rick Riordan book The Sword of Summer

Source: The Sword of Summer

“You cannot expect to live a positive life if you hang with negative people.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Life, People

“I don't expect life to make sense," he said after a few moments, "but it could certainly be pleasant if it would stop kicking us in the balls.”

Scott Lynch book The Republic of Thieves

Source: The Republic of Thieves (2013), Chapter 5 “The Five-Year Game: Starting Position” section 1 (p. 250)
Context: Locke put his head in his hands and sighed.
“I don’t expect life to make sense,” he said after a few moments, “but it would certainly be pleasant if it would stop kicking us in the balls.”

Life, Sense