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Quotes on Surprise

212 quotes

The thing about a cartoon is, you can do whatever you want. The tightrope that we are walking on 'The Simpsons' and 'Futurama' is "How do you continue to surprise the audience, but make them good surprises?" Not every surprise is good, but you want to continue jolting people.
Matt GroeningRead
I do reread, kind of obsessively, partly for the surprise of how the same book reads at a different point in life, and partly to have the sense of returning to an old friend.
Elizabeth StroutRead
When one has made his demands upon the Universal, he must be ready for surprises. Everything may seem to be going wrong, when in reality, it is going right.
Florence Scovel ShinnRead
The good traveler has the gift of surprise.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
If you don't know anything about computers, just remember that they are machines that do exactly what you tell them but often surprise you in the result.
Richard DawkinsRead
Give your employees a mission that matches their ambitions. When you challenge people, they surprise you.
Richard BransonRead
It may not be possible to 'win the future,' in President Obama's words, but if we're going to encourage more innovation, it's not enough for us to just dig in and work harder. We also need to encourage surprise and serendipity. We need to play each other's instruments.
Steven JohnsonRead
As I go through all kinds of feelings and experiences in my journey through life -- delight, surprise, chagrin, dismay -- I hold this question as a guiding light: 'What do I really need right now to be happy?' What I come to over and over again is that only qualities as vast and deep as love, connection and kindness will really make me happy in any sort of enduring way.
Sharon SalzbergRead
An artist's job is to surprise himself. Use all means possible.
Robert HenriRead
I have seen many storms in my life. Most storms have caught me by surprise, so I had to learn very quickly to look further and understand that I am not capable of controlling the weather, to exercise the art of patience and to respect the fury of nature.
Paulo CoelhoRead
Open your ears before you open your mouth, it may surprise your eyes!
Earl NightingaleRead
To my surprise I found that when other top players in the precomputer age (before 1995, roughly) wrote about games in magazines and newspaper columns, they often made more mistakes in their annotations than the players had made at the board.
Garry KasparovRead
Throughout the long period of religious doubt, I had been rendered very unhappy by the gradual loss of belief, but when the process was completed, I found to my surprise that I was quite glad to be done with the whole subject.
Bertrand RussellRead
Overcoming complacency is crucial at the start of any change process, and it often requires a little bit of surprise, something that grabs attention at more than an intellectual level. You need to surprise people with something that disturbs their view that everything is perfect.
John P. KotterRead
A big part of making music is the discovery aspect, is the surprise aspect. That's why I think I'll always love sampling. Because it involves combining the music fandom: collecting, searching, discovering music history, and artifacts of recording that you may not have known existed and you just kind of unlock parts of your brain, you know?
GotyeRead
I have not asked for life._x000D_ But I try to accept whatever_x000D_ life brings without surprise._x000D_ And I shall depart again without having_x000D_ questioned anyone about my strange_x000D_ stay here on earth.
Omar KhayyamRead
Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.
Joseph AddisonRead
Nothing is a surprise to God; nothing is a setback to His plans; nothing can thwart His purposes; and nothing is beyond His control.
Joni Eareckson TadaRead
What people who don't write don't understand is that they think you make up the line consciously — but you don't. It proceeds from your unconscious. So it's the same surprise to you when it emerges as it is to the audience when the comic says it. I don't think of the joke and then say it. I say it and then realize what I've said. And I laugh at it, because I'm hearing it for the first time myself.
Woody AllenRead
In architecture it isn't enough to just have the right building that works well. It can also be beautiful. It can also be different. It can create surprise. And surprise is the main thing in a work of art. [] I like and respect Brasí­lia very much. It is a simple city, a rational one. I always defend the urban design of Brasí­lia
Oscar NiemeyerRead
Some say, 'Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.' I say, 'Those who ignore history are in for a big surprise.'
Stephen ColbertRead

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