Quotes about surprise
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“Sit down, Will. There’s a good fellow,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” replied Will, and Halt’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“He’s never called me sir,” he said.
“Probably trying to get on my good side,” Crowley replied.
Halt nodded savagely. “Probably.”

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

Source: Erak's Ransom

“If you plan for the worst, all surprises are pleasant.”

Robert Jordan The Shadow Rising

Gaul
(15 September 1992)
Variant: Always plan for the worst, that way all your surprises will be pleasant ones.
Source: The Shadow Rising

“If you love something set it free, but don't be surprised if it comes back with herpes.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Love, Funny

“Comfort and familiarity were wonderful but they also dulled passion and excitement. Predictability and habit made surprises almost impossible.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Passion

“You're much shorter than my mom."
"Brat," she said, surprised into a giggle.
"That's no way to talk to a vampire."
"Bloodsucking brat."
"Better" he said.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Ghost Town

Way, Moms

“Sometimes people surprise us. People we believe we know.”

Joyce Carol Oates book The Falls

Source: The Falls

People

“In an initial period, Photography, in order to surprise, photographs the notable; but soon, by a familiar reversal, it decrees notable whatever it photographs. The 'anything whatever' then becomes the sophisticated acme of value.”

Roland Barthes (1915–1980) French philosopher, critic and literary theorist

Source: Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography

“i am like a survivor
of the flood
walking through the streets
drenched with
God
surprised that all of the
drowned victims
are still walking and talking”

Saul Williams (1972) American singer, musician, poet, writer, and actor

Source: , said the shotgun to the head.

God

“You are an endless project… changing, evolving, surprising.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Change

“That should have been my strategy! By the time I’ve worked through the emotions of surprise, admiration, anger, jealousy, and frustration, I’m watching that reddish mane of hair disappear into the trees well out of shooting range.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Jealousy, Tree, Time, Anger

“Retribution is tricky…. The insult isn't usually worth the risk of punishment. And eventually one learns that karma has a surprising way of taking care of these situations. All you have to do is sit back and watch.”

Candace Bushnell book One Fifth Avenue

Source: One Fifth Avenue

Way, Learning

“Personally, I think knees should be kept for the eighth or ninth date, or the wedding day. As a nice surprise you know? 'oh, my darling, you have knees! I never would have thought”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Mortal Coil

Thinking, Wedding, Personality

“I went to the door, and Gary tried hard not to notice I was blue. He looked at his feet, and he looked above my head, and he cleared his throat.

It's okay,' I said. 'I know I'm blue.'

It caught me by surprise,' he said. 'I didn't want to seem rude.”

Janet Evanovich book Fearless Fourteen

Source: Fearless Fourteen

“Worry is a way to pretend that you have knowledge or control over what you don't--and it surprises me, even in myself, how much we prefer ugly scenarios to the pure unknown.”

Rebecca Solnit (1961) Author and essayist from United States

Source: A Field Guide to Getting Lost

Way, Knowledge

“It's surprising how hard we'll work when the work is done just for ourselves.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

“I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than fatally disappointed.”

Julia Glass (1956) Novelist, journalist, editor

Source: I See You Everywhere

Disappointment

“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 book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Love, Sex

“Men are easy,' he said, fingers tapping on his mahogany desk. 'A man's plumbing is like his mind: simple, very few surprises. You ladies, on the other hand… well, God put a lot of thought into making you.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Men, God

“One mind can think only of its own questions; it rarely surprises itself.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Shadow

Source: Ender's Shadow

Question, Thinking

“Just like the breakthroughs, the bad stuff always takes you by surprise. (121)”

Gail Giles (1955) American writer

Source: Right Behind You

“Life is a series of surprises and would not be worth taking or keeping if it were not.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Life

“Life is full of surprises, but never when you need one.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat

Life

“She surprised him by agreeing. "Yes, I was simply curious, and no, I would never criticize you in front of your followers. Do you have the patience to endure one more question, husband?"

"What is it?"

"When do you suppose you'll leave me behind?”

Julie Garwood (1946) American writer

Source: The Wedding

Question, Patience

“Storms, woman,” [Kaladin] said. “I don’t know what to make of you.”
“Preferably not a corpse.”
“I’m surprised someone hasn't already done that.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

“Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?”

Maya Angelou And Still I Rise

"Still I Rise"
And Still I Rise (1978)

Dance

“Jules: Why are you on the floor?
Emma: I've heard roling out of bed in the morning helps you build up resistance to surprise attacks.
Jules: Oh yeah? What does screaming "holy crap!" do?
Emma: That part's optional.”

Cassandra Clare book Lord of Shadows

Source: Lord of Shadows

Help, Parting

“It is a mistake to regard age as a downhill grade toward dissolution. The
reverse is true. As one grows older, one climbs with surprising strides.”

George Sand (1804–1876) French novelist and memoirist; pseudonym of Lucile Aurore Dupin

Age

“But chance runs like a river through all our lives, and being prepared for surprise is the best we can do.”

Kenneth Oppel Skybreaker

Source: Skybreaker

Chance

“It's true that writing is a solitary occupation, but you would be surprised at how much companionship a group of imaginary characters can offer once you get to know them.”

Anne Tyler (1941) American novelist

“Here we are. Maybe I should warn you before we enter…(Asmodeus)
(Jericho stepped past him and threw open the door.)
Or maybe not. Let’s just barge in and be surprised, shall we? (Asmodeus)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dream Warrior

Past

“You'd be surprised how many people in the modern age no longer fear zombies as much as teletubies.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dream Warrior

People, Age, Fear

“We weren’t ourselves when we fell in love, and when we became ourselves – surprise! – we were poison. We complete each other in the nastiest, ugliest possible way.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

Love, Way

“It's surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.”

Barbara Kingsolver (1955) American author, poet and essayist

Memory, Time

“Statistically the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you would think the mere fact of existence would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise.”

Lewis Thomas book The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

"On Probability and Possibility"
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)
Context: Statistically the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you would think the mere fact of existence would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise. We are alive against the stupendous odds of genetics, infinitely outnumbered by all the alternates who might, except for luck, be in our places.

Thinking

“He started to look at me in a manner I recognized: it was the way I looked at a new book, one I had never read before, one that surprised me with all it had to say.”

Alice Hoffman book Blackbird House

Source: Blackbird House

Books, Way, Reading

“It is on a day like this one,
a little later a little earlier
that you descover without surprise
that something is wrong
that you don't know how to live
and you will never know”

Georges Perec book A Man Asleep

Source: Un homme qui dort

“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

“People surprise you sometimes.”

Dennis Lehane book Sacred

Sacred

People

“The surprise is on the far side."
"You're sure?"
"Positive."
"It better not be another fairy," Seth said.
"What's the matter with fairies?"
"I've already seen about a billion of them and also they turned me into a walrus.”

Brandon Mull Fablehaven

Source: Fablehaven

“Are you going to shoot me?' Vengeous sneered. 'I wouldn't be surprised. What would a thing like you know about honor? Only a heathen would bring a gun to a sword fight.'

And only a moron would bring a sword to a gunfight.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Playing with Fire

Fight

“…I realized that once people are broken in certain ways they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one.”

Douglas Coupland book Life After God

Source: Life After God (1994)

Life, People, Way

“I don't approve of surprises. The pleasure is never enhanced and the inconvenience is considerable.”

Jane Austen book Emma

Variant: Surprizes are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.
Source: Emma (1815)

Pleasure

“That which is not slightly distorted lacks sensible appeal; from which it follows that irregularity—that is to say, the unexpected, surprise and astonishment, are an essential part and characteristic of beauty.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Beauty, Parting

“He knows bad days. Bad days take him completely by surprise. They make him not trust the good days because it's likely something is lurking twenty-four hours away.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: The Piper's Son

“Some people fall head over heels. Other people begin to fall without even knowing it—love grows like a spring flower beneath last autumn’s leaves and catches them by surprise.”

Elizabeth Chandler (1954) writer

Source: Summer in the City

Love, People, Spring, Flowers

“What mattered was stil there. That was what they all felt, and what surprised them all. What mattered couldnt be shaken.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Love and Peaches

“Pieces and parts were always easier to process. The full picture, the entire story, was another thing entirely. But you just never knew. Sometimes, people could surprise you.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

People, Parting

“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

“If you're trying to take a roomful of people by surprise, it's a lot easier to hit your targets if you don't yell going through the door.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
Source: Young Miles

People

“Onscreen, Foaly rubbed his eyelids with his index fingers.
"Yeah, yeah. Here we go. Captain Short goes rogue once more. Hands up who's surprised. Anyone?”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Last Guardian

“He moved like a dancer, which is not surprising; a horse is a beautiful animal, but it is perhaps most remarkable because it moves as if it always hears music.”

Mark Helprin book Winter's Tale

Source: Winter's Tale

Beauty, Music, Animals, Horse

“A man's plumbing is like his mind: simple, very few surprises. You ladies, on the other hand… well, God put a lot of thought in making you.”

Khaled Hosseini (1965) novelist

God

“The ending is always a surprise.”

Daniel Wallace book Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions

Source: Big Fish

“Who I am, and what I am capable of doing has always managed to surprise me.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Vanishing Acts

“They seemed to come suddenly upon happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in the winter woods.”

Edith Wharton book Ethan Frome

Source: Ethan Frome

Happiness, Winter

“I saw the movie, 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' and was surprised because I didn't see any tigers or dragons. And then I realized why: they're crouching and hidden.”

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer

“When our inner child is not nurtured and nourished, our minds gradually close to new ideas, unprofitable commitments and the surprises of the Spirit.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Idea

“Rarely do we invest the time to open the book of another's life. When we do, we are usually surprised to find its cover so misleading and its reviews so flawed.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Life, Books, Time

“People surprise you, Frank, with just how fuckin stupid they are. I mean, do you actually realize how much adult conversation is spent on this fuckin business? Facts treated like they were opinions just for the simple purpose of talking about it longer? Some people might think that's interesting, bub, but I'll tell you. It's romanticizing a goddamn rock by calling it a mountain range to me. People waste a helluva lot of time they could be putting to useful purposes. This is a game. See it and forget about it.”

Richard Ford The Sportswriter

Source: The Sportswriter (1986), p. 104

People, Stupidity, Mountain, Game

“I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. I am Jack's Broken Heart.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Heart

“Getting angry over something that won't change is like seeing what happens if you hit your hand with a hammer over and over again, and being surprised each time when it hurts. So you might as well stop doing it.”

Mercedes Lackey (1950) American novelist and short story writer

Source: Beauty and the Werewolf

Change, Time, Hurt

“The future can ever promise but one thing and one thing only: surprises.”

Steven Erikson book House of Chains

House of Chains (2002)

Future

“Alec took me by surprise”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: What to Buy the Shadowhunter Who Has Everything

“Where'er a noble deed is wrought,
Where'er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts in glad surprise
To higher levels rise.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Santa Filomena

Santa Filomena.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Heart

“The twentieth century has witnessed with surprise, not merely the promulgation of these ferocious doctrines, but their enforcement with brutal vigour by the Government and by the populace. No past services, no proved patriotism, even wounds sustained in war, could procure immunity for persons whose only crime was that their parents had brought them into the world. Every kind of persecution, grave or petty, upon the world-famous scientists, writers, and composers at the top down to the wretched little Jewish children in the national schools, was practised, was glorified, and is still being practised and glorified.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

"Hitler and His Choice", The Strand Magazine (November 1935), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 681
The 1930s

War, Children, World, School

“First, we didn't know ourselves. We thought we were going into another Korean war, but this was a different country. Secondly, we didn't know our South Vietnamese allies. We never understood them, and that was another surprise. And we knew even less about North Vietnam. Who was Ho Chi Minh? Nobody really knew. So, until we know the enemy and know our allies and know ourselves, we'd better keep out of this dirty kind of business. It's very dangerous.”

Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987) United States general

As quoted in The Certain Trumpet: Maxwell Taylor and the American Experience in Vietnam (1991) by Douglas Kinnard, p. 198

War, Business, Country

“I don’t know how to defend myself: surprised innocence
Cannot imagine being under suspicion.”

Pierre Corneille Rodogune

Je me défendrai mal: l'innocence étonnée
Ne peut s'imaginer qu'elle soit soupçonnée.
Rodogune, act V, scene iv
Rodogune (1644)

Imagination

“Our units of temporal measurement, from seconds on up to months, are so complicated, asymmetrical and disjunctive so as to make coherent mental reckoning in time all but impossible. Indeed, had some tyrannical god contrived to enslave our minds to time, to make it all but impossible for us to escape subjection to sodden routines and unpleasant surprises, he could hardly have done better than handing down our present system. It is like a set of trapezoidal building blocks, with no vertical or horizontal surfaces, like a language in which the simplest thought demands ornate constructions, useless particles and lengthy circumlocutions. Unlike the more successful patterns of language and science, which enable us to face experience boldly or at least level-headedly, our system of temporal calculation silently and persistently encourages our terror of time.
…
It is as though architects had to measure length in feet, width in meters and height in ells; as though basic instruction manuals demanded a knowledge of five different languages. It is no wonder then that we often look into our own immediate past or future, last Tuesday or a week from Sunday, with feelings of helpless confusion.”

Robert Grudin (1938) American writer

Time and the Art of Living (1982)

God, Feeling, Knowledge, Science

“Like Christianity, Buddhism explained suffering. In forms that established themselves in China, Buddhism offered the same sort of comfort to bereaved survivors and victims of violence or of disease as Christian faith did in the Roman world. Buddhism of course originated in India, where disease incidence was probably always very high as compared with civilizations based in cooler climates; Christianity, too, took shape in the urban environments of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria where the incidence of infectious disease was certainly very high as compared to conditions in cooler and less crowded places. From their inception, therefore, both faiths had to deal with sudden death by disease as one of the conspicuous facts of human life. Consequently, it is not altogether surprising that both religions taught that death was a release from pain, and a blessed avenue of entry upon a delightful afterlife where loved ones would be reunited, and earthly injustices and pains amply compensated for.”

William H. McNeill (1917–2016) Canadian historian

Source: Plagues and Peoples (1976), Ch.3.

Love, Life, Death, Pain

“Commonplace people have an answer for everything and nothing ever surprises them. They try to look as though they knew what you were about to say better than you did yourself, and when it is their turn to speak, they repeat with great assurance something that they have heard other people say, as though it were their own invention.”

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) French painter

25 February 1852 (p. 152)
1831 - 1863, Delacroix' 'Journal' (1847 – 1863)

People

“In the meantime, Mosul is very, very difficult. Do you know why? Because I don’t talk about military, and I don’t talk about certain other things, you’re going to be surprised to hear that. And by the way, my whole campaign, I’d say that. So I don’t have to tell you. I don’t want to be one of these guys that say, “Yes, here’s what we’re going to do.” I don’t have to do that. I don’t have to tell you what I’m going to do in North Korea. Wait a minute. I don’t have to tell you what I’m going to do in North Korea. And I don’t have to tell you what I’m going to do with Iran. You know why? Because they shouldn’t know. And eventually, you guys are going to get tired of asking that question.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2017, February

Way, Guy, Question, Waiting

“Many who have visited me in Washington in the past few months may have been surprised when I have told them that personally and because of my own daily contacts with all manner of difficult situations I am more concerned and less cheerful about international world conditions than about our immediate domestic prospects.
I say this to you not as a confirmed pessimist but as one who still hopes that envy, hatred and malice among Nations have reached their peak and will be succeeded by a new tide of peace and good-will.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1930s, Address at Chautauqua, New York (1936)

World, Peace, Hope, Past

““So, his Slavonic Majesty hires thieves to spy for him. Spying is such a foul business that I am surprised that even a good Angevin thief would stoop to it.” He turned to Lord Peter with a sudden realization. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to imply—”
”That’s all right, Your Highness,” Lord Peter said. “It’s a common reaction. Their spies are dirty, filthy scum, not fit to wipe your boots on, while our spies are noble gentlemen doing dangerous work for the love of King and Country. Would that it were so, Your Highness, but I’m afraid that sometimes the desired image is at fault—in both directions.””

Michael Kurland book Ten Little Wizards

Source: Ten Little Wizards (1988), Chapter 4 (p. 33)

Love, Business, Country

“On finishing early at a rehearsal the London Symphony Orchestra leader Hugh Maguire said to Monteux: "Oh Maitre it is so nice to finish early. My wife will be so surprised." Monteux replied: "Be careful. You might be surprised!"”

Pierre Monteux (1875–1964) French conductor

From 'Pierre Monteux', Classic Record Collector, Autumn 2003, Number 34.

“As an immigrant, I am constantly surprised by how much I hear racism talked about and how little I actually see it. (Even fewer are the incidents in which I have experienced it directly.)”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Source: Books, What's So Great About America (2003), Ch. 4: The Reparations Fallacy

“It seems reasonable to suppose that conflict does exhibit many general patterns, that the patterns of conflict in industrial relations, international relations, interpersonal relations, and even animal life are not wholly different from one another, and that it is, therefore, worth looking for the common element. On the other hand, we should be surprised if there were no differences; the pattern of conflict in international relations, for instance, is not the same as in industrial or interpersonal relations. Just as it is important to perceive the similarities in different situations, so it is important to perceive the differences. These differences cannot be perceived, however, without a general theory to serve as a standard of comparison.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1960s, Conflict and defense: A general theory, 1962, p. 2, partly cited in: Dennis Sandole (1998) A Comprehensive Mapping Of Conflict And Conflict. Resolution: A Three Pillar Approach http://www.gmu.edu/programs/icar/pcs/sandole.htm

Life, Animals

“What surprised me, which Google was part of, is that superficial search techniques over large bodies of stuff could get you what you wanted. I grew up in the AI tradition, where you have a complete conceptual model, and the information retrieval tradition, where you have complex vectors of key terms and Boolean queries. The idea that you can index billions of pages and look for a word and get what you want is quite a trick. To put it in more abstract terms, it's the power of using simple techniques over very large numbers versus doing carefully constructed systematic analysis.”

Terry Winograd (1946) American computer scientist

"Talking with Terry Winograd" http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/interviews/t_winograd_1.html, Ubiquity 3 (23), 29 July 2002.

Search, Idea, Parting

“And then one fine day the bourgeoisie is awakened by a terrific reverse shock: the gestapos are busy, the prisons fill up, the torturers around the racks invent, refine, discuss.People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: “How strange! But never mind — it’s Nazism, it will pass!” And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, but the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it.”

Aimé Césaire (1913–2008) Martiniquais politician

Source: Discourse on Colonialism (1955), p. 36

People, Truth, Hope, Business

“Yeah, especially this postmortem trip when people die and then everybody writes about what they felt that person is going through. It's really surprising to me that anyone can think that they have those kinds of insights or spend that much time really worrying about somebody else. I think they should spend more time trying to figure out who they are. That's my whole trip. I can't imagine anybody knowing me through my lyrics, because I don't particularly feel like I know myself. And I have more than the benefit of just lyrics to go on.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

On people thinking that they have a connection with a band or a person through their lyrics ** Interview with Request Magazine, October 1994 http://web.stargate.net/soundgarden/articles/request_10-94.shtml, Soundgarden Era

People, Feeling, Imagination, Thinking

“Imagine your brain as a canister filled with ink,
Now think of your body as the pen where the ink resides.
Fuse the two - Kapow! What are you now?
You're the human magic marker, won't you please surprise my eyes?”

Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist

Lyrics, S.C.I.E.N.C.E. (1997)

Imagination, Thinking

“I shouldn't be surprised if it hailed a good deal tomorrow", Eeyore was saying. "Blizzards and what-not. Being fine today doesn't mean anything. It has no sig - what's that word? Well, it has none of that. It's just a small piece of weather.”

A.A. Milne book The House at Pooh Corner

The House at Pooh Corner (1928)

Weather

“The Court today finds that the Powers That Be, up in Albany, have conspired to effect an establishment of the Satmar Hasidim. I do not know who would be more surprised at this discovery: the Founders of our Nation or Grand Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum, founder of the Satmar. The Grand Rebbe would be astounded to learn that after escaping brutal persecution and coming to America with the modest hope of religious toleration for their ascetic form of Judaism, the Satmar had become so powerful, so closely allied with Mammon, as to have become an establishment of the Empire State. And the Founding Fathers would be astonished to find that the Establishment Clause — which they designed to insure that no one powerful sect or combination of sects could use political or governmental power to punish dissenters — has been employed to prohibit characteristically and admirably American accommodation of the religious practices (or more precisely, cultural peculiarities) of a tiny minority sect. I, however, am not surprised. Once this Court has abandoned text and history as guides, nothing prevents it from calling religious toleration the establishment of religion.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Board of Ed. of Kiryas Joel v. Grumet (1994) (dissenting) (citations and some internal quotation marks omitted).
1990s

Religion, Hope, History, Learning

“For a start, let's look at the Grotto itself. By and large these are extremely aptly named, 'Grot' meaning rubbish and 'Oh' being exclamation of disappointed surprise.”

Peter Corey (1946) British writer

Coping With series, Coping With Christmas (1999)

Disappointment

“Somewhere in the trash he reads Martland has read that heavy men walk with surprising lightness and grace; as a result he trips about like a portly elf hoping to be picked up by a leprechaun.”

Kyril Bonfiglioli (1928–1985) British art dealer

Source: The Mortdecai Trilogy, Don't Point That Thing At Me (1972), Ch. 1.

Men, Hope, Light, Reading

“[F]olks would better off dipping their heads in a bucket of liquid [nitrogen] and battering them against a tree very very hard than reading Baxter's Titan. It would not surprise me if reading that book causes birth defects.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

Books, Birth, Tree, Reading

“I'm always surprised when anything about the band connects. But I love the fact that it's hard for people to understand. We've said before that it's always been a great thing to get certain people to go away thinking, 'Oh dear, she can't play the drums!' 'Fine, if you think it's all a gimmick, go away!”

Jack White (1975) American musician and record producer

It weeds out people who wouldn't care anyway. On how they are able to "sell what is really an art concept" to a mass audience Perry, Andrew (2004). "The White Stripes uncut" http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,13887,1349947,00.html Observer Music Monthly (accessed June 19, 2007). 2007

Love, People, Understanding, Thinking

“Pass in, pass in, the angels say,
In to the upper doors;
Nor count compartments of the floors,
But mount to Paradise
By the stairway of surprise.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Merlin I http://www.emersoncentral.com/poems/merlin_i.htm, st. 2 1840s, Poems (1847)

Angels

“The neanderthal experiment was simultaneously the high and low point of the genetic revolution. Successful in that a long-dead cousin of Homo sapien was brought back from extinction, yet a failure in that the scientists, so happy to gaze upon their experiments from their ever lofty ivory towers, had not seen so far as to consider the social implications that a new species of man might command in a world unvisited by their like for over 30 millennia. It was little surprise that so many neanderthals felt confused and unprepared for the pressures of modern life. It was Homo sapien at his least sapient.”

Jasper Fforde (1961) British novelist

Lost In A Good Book (2002), ch. 4a, p. 67

Life, Happiness, World, Failure

“[E]ven if we disagree about the Iraq invasion in 2003 and the consequent moves made by Bush 43 Administration, the decision of Obama Administration to retreat, especially announcing it, this is the worst you can do. At noon, at that day, that month, we are out. By sending the signal to the radical Islamists, to the forces that were about just to recover and prepare again for attacks against the free world, that was a recipe for disaster. It created a vacuum. It’s not a surprise that we live in a world today that is a much more dangerous place than in 2008. It helped Vladimir Putin to regain his confidence and because after his attack against the Republic of Georgia in 2008 in August, he was basically rewarded by Obama/Clinton “reset” policy instead of paying a price for taking territory of neighboring country.”

Garry Kasparov (1963) former chess world champion

2010s, Interview with Bill Kristol (2016)

World, Confidence, Decision, Help

“The first period embraces the time between the first records of empirical determinations of the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle until the invention of the Differential and Integral Calculus, in the middle of the seventeenth century. This period, in which the ideal of an exact construction was never entirely lost sight of, and was occasionally supposed to have been attained, was the geometrical period, in which the main activity consisted in the approximate determination of π by the calculation of the sides or the areas of regular polygons in- and circum-scribed to the circle. The theoretical groundwork of the method was the Greek method of Exhaustions. In the earlier part of the period the work of approximation was much hampered by the backward condition of arithmetic due to the fact that our present system of numerical notation had not yet been invented; but the closeness of the approximations obtained in spite of this great obstacle are truly surprising. In the later part of this first period methods were devised by which the approximations to the value of π were obtained which required only a fraction of the labour involved in the earlier calculations. At the end of the period the method was developed to so high a degree of perfection that no further advance could be hoped for on the lines laid down by the Greek Mathematicians; for further progress more powerful methods were required.”

E. W. Hobson (1856–1933) British mathematician

Source: Squaring the Circle (1913), pp. 10-11

Hope, Time, Parting, Perfection

“We picked up Madonna at The Ritz to go to the Gaultier show together, and she took off her coat. At this point she hadn’t even said a word to me, but she leaned over and said to me, Anna, I have a surprise for you, and she showed me she was wearing my dress.”

Anna Sui (1964) American fashion designer

Lula Magazine Interview (February 26, 2014)

“'Kant ought to be arrested and given three years in Solovki asylum for that "proof" of his!' Ivan Nikolayich burst out completely unexpectedly. 'Ivan!' whispered Berlioz, embarrassed. But the suggestion to pack Kant off to an asylum not only did not surprise the stranger but actually delighted him. 'Exactly, exactly!' he cried and his green left eye, turned on Berlioz glittered. 'That's exactly the place for him! I said to him myself that morning at breakfast: "If you'll forgive me, professor, your theory is no good. It may be clever but it's horribly incomprehensible. People will think you're mad."' Berlioz's eyes bulged. At breakfast… to Kant?”

Mikhail Bulgakov book The Master and Margarita

Book One in 'Never Talk to Strangers', MG, here Woland, Berlioz and Ivan are talking about Kant's views on existence of God
The Master and Margarita (1967)

People, Forgiveness, Thinking, Madness

“I wasn't surprised that she crossed over to the Liberals. I don't think she ever did have a Conservative bone in her body. Well, maybe one.”

Ralph Klein (1942–2013) Canadian politician

Source: As quoted in "Welcome to Ralph's World: 10 of Ralph Klein's most colourful quotes" http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/welcome-to-ralph-s-world-10-of-ralph-klein-s-most-colourful-quotes-1.1216791, CTV News

Thinking

“Is it any surprise, then, that Jesus felt such intense compassion for the poor and marginalized? That he constantly asked his disciples to care for the poor, the sick, the forgotten, the stranger? He was one of these throwaway people, and he lived among them for 30 years before his public ministry began. Christians tend to see Jesus’ commands to care for the poor as divine. And they were — Jesus was fully divine. But they also came from his human experience. He was fully human as well. I’m always amazed by people who feel they can be Christian without caring for the poor. Not only did Jesus command us to do this, Jesus himself was from this class. When God chose to join us, he joined us in Nazareth, to make sure that we wouldn’t forget.”

James Martin (priest) (1960) Jesuit priest and writer

"How can you be Christian without caring for the poor?" (2017)

God, People, Feeling, Forgetting

“First off, the whole point of airborne troops is surprise: you don't know they're coming until they're there. But because Cain arrived 24 hours after the first wave, the surprise was gone. And to make matters worse, the landing zone was some eight miles from the bridge. So, thanks to some incompetent planning by the top brass in England, the Germans knew that Cain and his men were coming, they knew where he landed, they knew where he was going, and they had the wherewithal to do something about it.”

Jeremy Clarkson (1960) English broadcaster, journalist and writer

The Victoria Cross: For Valour (2003)

Men

“The violent quarrel between the abstractionists [like Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, both English sculptors] and the surrealists seems to me quite unnecessary. All good art has contained both abstract and surrealist elements, just as it has contained both classical and romantic elements – order and surprise, intellect and imagination, conscious and unconscious. Both sides of the artist’s personality must play their part. And I think the first inception of a painting or a sculpture may begin from either end.”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

Source: 1925 - 1940, The sculptor speaks' (1937), pp. 254-255

Art, Imagination, Thinking, Parting

“I had some good opportunities. I was lucky to have had the chance to do things differently. Architecture is about surprise.”

Oscar Niemeyer (1907–2012) Brazilian architect

Quoted in "Architect of Optimism," Angel Gurria-Quintana, Financial Times (2007-04-13).

Chance

“They're also surprised I'm only 6 feet tall. They expect someone much bigger. They say I'm younger and prettier in person, which I like.”

Lucy Lawless (1968) New Zealand actress

On Xena fans' impression of Lawless when they encounter her in person — reported in Larry Bonko (March 10, 1997) "Hero Worship: Hercules. Xena. They're Tough. They're Sexy. And in the World of TV Syndication, They're Muscling Out the Competition", The Virginian-Pilot, p. E1.

Personality

“. Here [ Guernsey ] people bath among the rocks which serve as cabins, since there's nothing else; nothing is more attractive than this mixture of women and men crowded on these rocks. One would belief oneself in a landscape by Watteau rather than in the real world. So I'll have a source of real and graceful motives which I will be able to make use of. Some enchanting bathing-costumes... Nothing is more amusing when one is strolling through these rocks, than to surprise young girls getting ready to bathe... Despite the small number of things that I'll be able to bring back [to Paris], I hope to be able to give you an idea of these charming things.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) French painter and sculptor

In Renoir's letter to Paul Durand-Ruel, from Guernsey, 27 Sept, 1883; as cited in 'Renoir in Guernsey' (in 1883), text by John House http://museums.gov.gg/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=81297&p=0, Guernsey museum 1880's

Women, Men, People, World

“[Of a wedding:] And so, standing before the aforesaid officiator, the two swore that at every other time of their lives till death took them, they would assuredly believe, feel, and desire precisely as they had believed, felt, and desired during the few preceding weeks. What was as remarkable as the undertaking itself was the fact that nobody seemed at all surprised at what they swore.”

Thomas Hardy book Jude the Obscure

Pt. I, ch. IX
Jude the Obscure (1895)

Death, Feeling, Wedding, Time

Quotes about surprise page 4

Quotes about surprise
page 4