Being Shocked Quotes & Sayings

General Colin Powell shocked a lot of people in Washington by speaking out against President Bush's policies, saying that the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. That's what I think he said - it was hard to hear him because he was being hustled out of the room to his cell in Guantanamo Bay. — Jay Leno

How does the biological wetware of the brain give rise to our experience: the sight of emerald green, the taste of cinnamon, the smell of wet soil? What if I told you that the world around you, with its rich colors, textures, sounds, and scents is an illusion, a show put on for you by your brain? If you could perceive reality as it really is, you would be shocked by its colorless, odorless, tasteless silence. Outside your brain, there is just energy and matter. Over millions of years of evolution the human brain has become adept at turning this energy and matter into a rich sensory experience of being in the world. — David Eagleman

When I was young, women were raped on the campus of a great university and the authorities responded by telling all the women students not to go out alone after dark or not to be out at all. Get in the house. (For women, confinement is always waiting to envelope you.) Some pranksters put up a poster announcing another remedy, that all men be excluded from campus after dark. It was an equally logical solution, but men were shocked at being asked to disappear, to lose their freedom to move and participate, all because of the violence of one men. — Rebecca Solnit

My hands ache from the fists I hadn't realized I'd clenched. My body shouts to run. Every nerve is alive and on fire. If I get to my drugs in time I can cut off the worst parts ... the shaking involuntarily, the feeling of being shocked with an electrical current, the horrible knowledge that the world is going to end and no one knows it but me. — Jenny Lawson

Jackson was a little shocked at just how much her apology meant, and surprised them both by flipping his hand over so that they were palm to palm.

She jolted a little at the contact but didn't pull away. He didn't either.

He told himself it was just a friendly touch - a thank-you for being there. For being Mollie.

But there was nothing friendly about the way touching her made his pulse quicken and his cock harden. — Lauren Layne

I asked all of our recruiters to give me all resumes of prospective employees with their name, gender, place of origin, and age blacked out. This simple change shocked me, because I found myself interviewing different-looking candidates - even though I was 100% convinced that I was not being biased in my resume selection process. — Eric Ries

People always seem quite shocked by the cruelty that's happening in America's schools. I'm baffled by their shock, and I'm concerned about what's not being addressed in their proposed solutions. — Glennon Doyle Melton

Sometimes I look at where we've come to, and how much technology and advancement there is, and I can't believe that we're not this perfectly balanced, beautiful, peaceful society. I'm shocked that we're so deeply polarized, that there are people who want progress and they feel guilty for wanting progress, because it somehow seems un-American, because being American means staying ignorant and going backward. — Rashida Jones

David Eagleman describes how you can take a male stickleback fish and have a female fish trespass on its territory. The male gets confused, because it wants to mate with the female, but it also wants to defend its territory. As a result, the male stickleback fish will simultaneously attack the female while initiating courtship behavior. The male is driven into a frenzy, trying to woo and kill the female at the same time. This works for mice as well. Put an electrode in front of a piece of cheese. If the mouse gets too close, the electrode will shock it. One feedback loop tells the mouse to eat the cheese, but another one tells the mouse to stay away and avoid being shocked. By adjusting the location of the electrode, you can get the mouse to oscillate, torn between two conflicting feedback loops. — Michio Kaku

Daemon had written: "What do you do when she asks a question no man would give a child an answer to?"
Saetan had replied: "Hope you're obliging enough to answer it for me. However, if you're backed into a corner, refer her to me. I've become accustomed to being shocked. — Anne Bishop

He saw the delicate blades of grass which the bodies of his comrades had fertilized; he saw the little shoots on the shell-shocked trees. He saw the smoke-puffs of shrapnel being blown about by light breezes. He saw birds making love in the wire that a short while before had been ringing with flying metal. He heard the pleasant sounds of larks up there, near the zenith of the trajectories. He smiled a little. There was something profoundly saddening about it. It all seemed so fragile and so absurd. — Humphrey Cobb

I buckle over, sobbing, my head resting against the hard shower tiles. I remember crying like this when Sukey died, the tears harsh, devouring, total. I hadn't known I was capable of being so sad, and the discovery shocked and terrified me. It was like finding an extra door in the house I'd always lived in, and opening it to find that the grief had carved out new rooms, new hallways, an entire black annex of its own. There were dark places in my mind I'd never known existed, and now that I'd seen them I knew they'd always be there, lying in wait, even when the original door had been sealed up. — Hilary T. Smith

I was shocked to have to admit to myself that not only had I accepted a complex theory somewhat uncritically, but that I had also actually noticed quite a bit of what was wrong, in the theory as well as in the practice of communism. But I had repressed this -partly out of loyalty to my friends, partly out of loyalty to "the cause", and partly because there is a mechanism of getting oneself more and more deeply involved: once one has sacrificed one's intellectual conscience over a minor point one doesn't wish to give in too easily; one wishes to justify the self-sacrifice by convincing oneself of the fundamental goodness of the cause, which is seen to outweigh any little moral or intellectual compromise that maybe required. With every such moral or intellectual sacrifice one gets more deeply involved. One becomes ready to back one's moral or intellectual investments in the cause with further investments. It's like being eager to throw good money after bad. — Karl R. Popper

Revealing my desert thoughts to a visitor one evening, I was accused of being against civilization, against science, against humanity. Naturally I was flattered and at the same time surprised, hurt, a little shocked. He repeated the charge. But how, I replied, being myself a member of humanity (albeit involuntarily, without prior consultation), could I be against humanity without being against myself, whom I love - though not very much; how can I be against science, when I gratefully admire, as much as any man, Thales, Democritus, Aristarchus, Faustus, Paracelsus, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Darwin and Einstein; and finally, how could I be against civilization when all which I most willingly defend and venerate - including the love — Edward Abbey

But while the residents were shocked by the violence, they were also often surprised by the mundaneness of it all. Discovered the extent of perversity the heart is capable of as they sat at home with nothing to do, and found that it was possible, faced with the stench of unimaginable evil, for a human being to grow bored, yawn, be absorbed by the problem of a missing sock, by neighborly irritations, to feel hunger skipping like a little mouse inside a tummy and return, once again, to the pressing matter of what to eat ... There they were, the most commonplace of them, those quite mismatched with the larger-than-life questions, caught up in the mythic battles of past vs. present, justice vs. injustice
the most ordinary swept up in extraordinary hatred, because extraordinary hatred was, after all, a commonplace event, — Kiran Desai

You do care a little for me, I know ... but nothing to speak of, and you don't love me. I was yours once till death if you'd cared to keep me, but I'm someone else's now ... and he's mine in a way that shocks you, but why don't you stop being shocked, and attend to your own happiness. — E. M. Forster

They were sitting on the couch chatting politely with me, not touching, or so it seemed, except that I happened to glance down and I saw that their hands were lying next to each other on the couch, and that Nick was caressing Alice's little finger with his own. I remember being shocked by a feeling of pure envy. I wanted to be Alice, young and lovely, feeling the secret caress of a handsome boy's fingertip. — Liane Moriarty

Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away. — Flannery O'Connor

You can trace an entire childhood in sexism through the entries sent in to the Everyday Sexism Project. The flashes of realization and first, painful moments of learning a woman's place. Often the memories are so vivid women carry and are shaped by them for the rest of their lives. I've been asked in countless interviews what has shocked me the most since starting the project. I think journalists expect me to tell them that it's the stories of rape, or the most appalling accounts of violence. Those stories have certainly angered and devastated me, of course, but nothing has shocked me more than the thousands and thousands of entries from young girls under the age of eighteen. When I started the project, I thought adult women would share their stories. The torrent of harassment, abuse, violence and assault being faced by children was a horribly unexpected surprise. People — Laura Bates

I'm shocked at being recognized. You go to places you don't think you would be and still, you are. Taxi drivers often recognise me ... but I haven't got a free ride yet. — Dan Stevens

The very first thing I remember in my early childhood is a flame, a blue flame jumping off a gas stove somebody lit... I remember being shocked by the whoosh of the blue flame jumping off the burner, the suddenness of it... I saw that flame and felt that hotness of it close to my face. I felt fear, real fear, for the first time in my life. But I remember it also like some kind of adventure, some kind of weird joy, too. I guess that experience took me someplace in my head I hadn't been before... The fear I had was almost like an invitation, a challenge to go forward into something I knew nothing about. That's where I think my personal philosophy of life and my commitment to everything I believe in started... In my mind I have always believed and thought since then that my motion had to be forward, away from the heat of that flame. — Miles Davis

Getting shocked was a badge of honor for Woz. He prided himself on being a hardware engineer, which meant — Walter Isaacson

Imagine yourself winning?.. Wouldn't that make you overconfident?'
'Not at all... It's called "positive visualisation", like being a runner: see yourself making it across the finish line, you pace yourself better, run a better race too. See yourself winning at poker, you make the winning calls. See yourself as a loser, you've not got the self-belief or determination to play well, no matter how much money you gamble.'
Chester - to Jennifer
I was shocked to hear the words of the Love Professor echoed by Chester: like yourself and you'll win; think you're a loser, and sure enough you'll end up losing. — Jennifer Cox

There's something insupportable about being pissed with the one person on this planet that sends your adrenaline flowing to remind you that you're alive. It's almost like we're mad because we've been shocked out of our usual comatose state of being by feeling something for someone, for ourselves, for just a moment. — Ana Castillo

He didn't say anything and I thought I'd shocked him, because I tend to do that. Not just with Michael but with pretty much anyone who can't deal with being honest and admitting that you have wants and needs and desires and all those other fun things. — Sarra Manning

The relation between the white and black races in Africa in many ways resembles the relation between the two sexes.
If the one of the two sexes were told that they did not play any greater part in the life of the other sex than this other sex plays within their own existence, they would be shocked and hurt.
[ ... ]
If they (white people) had been told that they played no more important part in the lives of the Natives than the Natives played in their own lives, they would have been highly indignant and ill at ease.
If you had told the Natives that they played no greater part in the life of the white people than the white people played in their lives, they would never have believed you, but would have laughed at you. Probably in Natives circles, stories are passing about, and being repeated, which prove the all-absorbing interest of the white people in the Kikuyu or Kavirondo, and their complete dependence upon them. — Karen Blixen

You know, most people trust people until the person does something to prove that they're not trustworthy. Can you try that?"

"Not a chance. That is like trying potentially poisonous food and being shocked while you take your last breath. — Emma McCoy

I was shocked at college to see one hundred of my classmates in the library all reading copies of the same book. Instead of doing as they did, I went into the stacks and read the first book written by an author whose name began with Z. I received the highest grade in the class. That convinced me that the institution was not being run correctly. I left. — John Cage

I think that it can be assumed that no adults are ever really 'shocked' - that being shocked is always a pose. — Thornton Wilder

Fuck!" he snarled.
He tilted her up again, her legs now resting on his shoulders, and positioned himself and began to push.
Into her back entrance.
Kimber drew in a great, shocked gasp, her hazel eyes wide. "Deke?"
"What the hell are you doing?" Luc barked.
Tensing a little more with every inch he pushed inside Kimber's tight passage, the tendons on his neck standing out, the muscles in his arms shaking, assailed by the amazing sensations of being slowly enveloped by her tight, ready flesh, Deke could barely form a word. "Fucking her ass. Saving her life. — Shayla Black

The main floor of Penn Station, early,
the first commuters arriving, leaving,
the man outstretched on his coat,
wide circles of survivors forming.
He's half in, half out of his clothes,
being kissed and cardio-shocked,
though he was likely dead before he landed.
This goes on for minutes, minutes more,
until the medics unhook the vanished heart,
move him onto the cot and cover him
with the snow-depth of a sheet
and wheel him the fluorescent length
of the hall through gray freight doors
that open on their own and close at will. — Stanley Plumly

Die young, stay pretty. Blondie, right? We think of it as a modern phenomenon, the whole youth thing, but really, consider all those great portraits, some of them centuries old. Those goddesses of Botticelli and Rubens, Goya's Maja, Madame X. Consider Manet's Olympia, which shocked at the time, he having painted his mistress with the same voluptuous adulation generally reserved for the aristocratic good girls who posed for depictions of goddesses. Hardly anyone knows anymore, and no one cares, that Olympia was Manet's whore; although there's every reason to imagine that, in life, she was foolish and vulgar and not entirely hygienic (Paris in the 1860s being what it was). She's immortal now, she's a great historic beauty, having been scrubbed clean by the attention of a great artist. And okay, we can't help but notice that Manet did not choose to paint her twenty years later, when time had started doing its work. The world has always worshipped nascence. Goddamn the world. — Michael Cunningham

They had also brought in a piece of human scrap so monstrous that everyone recoiled at the sight, that it shocked men who were no longer shockable. I shut my eyes; I had already seen far too much and I wanted to be able to forget eventually. This thing, this being, screamed in a corner like a maniac. The revulsion that turned our stomachs told us that it would be an act of generosity, a fraternal act, to finish him off. — Gabriel Chevallier

It was a shocking thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if you open it and read it, you don't have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don't have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or sold, or bought, or read. — Philip Pullman

Now her life was under attack, and she [Kit] was shocked to find how fragile everything she'd built really was. She was dumbfounded, too to find that while people were being ripped from her life like paper dolls from a chain, she longed to be the one who'd be gone first. — Vicki Pettersson

Being persuaded that Christ and his promises are factual is not by itself saving faith. That is why some professing Christians will be shocked at the last day, when they hear him say, "I never knew you,' even though they protest that he is "Lord, Lord." Believing that Christ and his promises are true, based on a testimony, is a necessary part of faith. But it is not sufficient to turn faith into saving faith. — John Piper

She gathered a circle of children around her and commenced singing 'For Those Who Peril on the Sea' over their little heads. But no, 'safety from storms' wasn't enough for her. God had to keep them from being blown up too. She set about ordering the poor things to pray for their parents every night- who knew what the German soldiers might do to them? Then she said to be especially good little boys and girls so Mama and Daddy could look down on them from heaven and BE PROUD OF THEM ... she had those children crying and sobbing fit to die.
I was too shocked to move, but no, not Elizabeth. No, quick as an adder's tongue, she had ahold of Adelaide's arm and told her to SHUT UP.
'Let me go!' Adelaide cried. 'I am speaking the Word of God!'
Elizabeth, she got a look on her that would turn the devil to stone, and then she slapped Adelaide right across the face! — Mary Ann Shaffer

I find it really interesting that people are shocked by the raw, natural representation of a woman and a man's body. I guess it's subverting our expectations in terms of how we've come to expect women to present themselves when they're being naked. Also the woman's and the man's role is subverted in that image. You'd expect the man to be carrying the woman. — Bat For Lashes

Instead, he'd been so desperate to prove to her that he did indeed fulfill that final requirement of hers - that of being a heroic officer - that he'd been thoughtless. He'd been so eager to show her that he was indeed no deserter, no pirate, but an actual knight, indeed, that he'd sat here sweating in his finest dress uniform waiting for her to regain her senses. He had wanted to impress her. Surprise her. Instead, he had shocked her into oblivion. — Danelle Harmon

To be civilized is to be potentially master of all possible ideas, and that means that one has got beyond being shocked, although one preserves one's own moral aesthetic preferences. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Most guys arrived here normal, and they were shocked and sickened by the behavior of the guys who'd been here a while. Then within a few weeks, they'd stop being shocked, and within a few months a lot of them joined the club of the crazies. And most of them, I think, went home and became normal again, though some didn't. But I never once saw anyone here who had gone around the bend ever return to normal while they were still here. It only got worse because in this environment they'd lost any sense of ... humanity. Or you could be nice and say they'd become desensitized. It was actually more frightening than sickening. A guy who'd sliced off the ear of a VC he'd killed that morning would be joking with the village kids and the old Mama-sans that afternoon and handing out candy. I mean, they weren't evil or psychotic, we were normal, which is was really scared the hell out of me. — Nelson DeMille

But if there are many of these ruffians,' said Merry, 'it will certainly mean fighting. You won't rescue Lotho, or the Shire, just by being shocked and sad, my dear Frodo. — J.R.R. Tolkien

We fall in love because we long to escape from ourselves with someone as beautiful, intelligent, and witty as we are ugly, stupid, and dull. But what if such a perfect being should one day turn around and decide they will love us back? We can only be somewhat shocked-how can they be as wonderful as we had hoped when they have the bad taste to approve of someone like us? — Alain De Botton

She believed in the miraculous. Or she had, until she reached an age when, all of a sudden, she realized that the life she was living, was in fact, her life. The clay of her being, so long infinitely malleable, had been formed, hardened into what now seemed a palpable, unchanging object. A shell she inhabited. It shocked her then. It shocked her now, like a slap in the face. — Robert Goolrick

No one expects Will Herondale to live past nineteen, and no one will be sorry to see him go, either -"
That was too much for Tessa. Without thinking about it she burst out indignantly, "What a thing to say!"
Gabriel, interrupted midrant, looked as shocked as if one of the tapestries had suddenly started talking. "Pardon me?"
"You heard me. Telling someone you wouldn't be sorry if they died! It's inexcusable!" She took hold of Will by the sleeve. "Come along, Will. This - this person - obviously isn't worth wasting your time on."
Will looked hugely entertained. "So true."
... Tessa frowned at Gabriel. "I think you owe Will an apology."
"I," said Gabriel, "would rather have my entrails yanked out and tied in a knot in front of my own eyes than apologize to such a worm."
"Goodness," said Jem mildly. "You can't mean that. Not the Will being a worm part, of course. The bit about the entrails. That sounds dreadful. — Cassandra Clare

Confinement is always waiting to envelope you.) Some pranksters put up a poster announcing another remedy, that all men be excluded from campus after dark. It was an equally logical solution, but men were shocked at being asked to disappear, to lose their freedom to move and participate, all because of the violence of one man. It is easy to name the disappearances of the Dirty War as crimes, — Rebecca Solnit

Part of being an artist is being willing to be shocked, being willing to be surprised, being willing to be hurt. — Holly Near

I was pretty shocked to learn that as many as 30,000 elephants are being killed every year to fuel the ivory trade, despite an international ban since 1989, and that 60% of forest elephants have already been wiped out. At this rate, experts say populations will become extinct in the next decade. No one needs ivory. — Ian Somerhalder

I know I'm being judged, and anyone who works in the public eye will get some negativity at some point. It can be tough and it hurts. I can be very tough on myself. Occasionally, I hear or read something cruel and I'm shocked. — Deborra-Lee Furness

The amount of meetings I've been in - people would be shocked. But that's how you gain experience, how you can gain knowledge, being in meetings and participating. You learn and grow. — Tiger Woods

Was it a doubt - a fear - a wandering uncertainty seeking rest, but finding none - so tear-blinded were its eyes - Mr. Thornton, instead of being shocked, seemed to have through that very stage of thought himself, and could suggest where the exact ray of light was to be found, which should make the dark places plain. Man of action as he was, busy in the world's great battle, there was a deeper religion binding him to God in his heart, in spite of his strong willfulness, through all his mistakes, than Mr. Hale ever dreamed. — Elizabeth Gaskell

We are in the midst of a once-in-a-century credit tsunami. Central banks and governments are being required to take unprecedented measures. Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders' equity are in a state of shocked disbelief. — Alan Greenspan

Many spiritual seekers who say their wish is to awaken don't actually want what they believe they do. This becomes clear sometimes at the approach to the brink of what feels like a void, where the obliteration of the egoic self seems imminent. With a shocked recognition of what is being asked, the person will recoil. The scale of the loss-the dissolution of the familiar self-is beyond what was bargained for. — Jan Frazier

I, with millions of other Americans, have the same dream Martin Luther King Jr. had; when I wake up I wish some of the things I dreamt would be true. I wish that little black and white boys and girls would hold hands without being shocked at their nearness to each other and say in a natural way, we have overcome. — Maya Angelou

Far from being freaks, the Hell's Angels are a logical product of the culture that now claims to be shocked at their existence. The generation represented by the editors of Time has lived so long in a world full of Celluloid outlaws hustling toothpaste and hair oil that it is no longer capable of confronting the real thing. For twenty years they have sat with their children and watched yesterday's outlaws raise hell with yesterday's world ... and now they are bringing up children who think Jesse James is a television character. This is the generation that went to war for Mom, God and Apple Butter, the American Way of Life. When they came back, they crowned Eisenhower and then retired to the giddy comfort of their TV parlors, to cultivate the subtleties of American history as seen by Hollywood. — Hunter S. Thompson

I remember being shocked when I discovered some of my school pals didn't have books in their homes. I thought it was like not having oxygen, or hot water. — Iain Banks

I remember being shocked when I came out from under the focusing cloth after a minute or two being submerged within that, at the startling green color of those ferns. — John Sexton

Angus skidded to a stop and lifted his jaw as if sensing he was being watched. He looked in her direction and instantly covered his manhood as his eyes caught Jane's shocked face in the tree limbs. "Oh, lassie."
"Oh, naked man," Jane teased before she could stop herself. — Michelle M. Pillow

I was accused of being against civilization, against science, against humanity. naturally, i was flattered and at the same time surprised, hurt, a little shocked. he repeated the charge. but how, i replied, being myself a member of humanity (albeit involuntarily, without prior consultation), could i be against humanity without being against myself, whom i love - though not very much; how can i be against science, when i gratefully admire, as much as i can, thales, democritus, aristarchus, faustus, paracelsus, copernicus, galiley, kepler, newton, darwin and einstien; and finally, how could i be against civilization when all which i most willingly defend and venerate - including the love of wilderness - is comprehended by the term — Edward Abbey

I'm kind of shocked any time somebody hires me and even more shocked any time somebody hires me to play a character like Lex Luthor, which I only knew from the public consciousness of him being a bald, brooding villain who is older than me. — Jesse Eisenberg

Leo wondered what unknown sin they must have committed in some previous life to deserve this. The answer came the same way their feet later shocked to life in the warming hut after being so numb for hours- you think you'll never feel your toes again, and then all of a sudden life, damaged, stiffened, clammy, but life, dog-eat-dog life! We have not done a single thing to deserve this. — Peter Orner

Yeah, I love A Nightmare on Elm Street. I was just a fan. I was such an avid fan. I remember being on the set talking about a sequence and he started asking me about maybe staging it a little different. I realized - I think he was shocked that I knew his work so well - I remember I started going like, "Why don't we do it like The Last House on the Left, where you had the girl on the ground ... " — Kevin D. Williamson

It hadn't shocked the old woman, not much. She had got past being shocked early in life. — Sherwood Anderson

I think Clinton, after getting into office and into Washington, was shocked at being bludgeoned. So he spent time trying to be all things to all people - one way guaranteed not to be successful or respected in a lion's den. You can't just play around with all those big cats - you've got to take somebody on. — Maya Angelou

In assembling this group of portraits of women, I'm aware that I'm treading on dangerous ground. When I was in college, I learned to be distrustful of men's depictions of women. I remember seeing Garry Winogrand's book Women Are Beautiful in the school library and being shocked that it hadn't been defaced for its blatant objectification of women. But looking back, maybe I was too harsh. Whether one photographs men or women, it is always a form of objectification. Whatever you say about Winogrand, his depiction was honest. — Alec Soth

I pick up a copy of Newsweek on the plane and immediately notice how biased, slanted, and opinionated all the U.S. newsmagazine articles are. Not that the Euro and British press aren't biased as well
they certainly are
but living in the United States we are led to believe, and are constantly reminded, that our press is fair and free of bias. After such a short time away, I am shocked at how obviously and blatantly this lie is revealed
there is the 'reporting' that is essentially parroting what the White House press secretary announces; the myriad built-in assumptions that one ceases to register after being somewhere else for a while. The myth of neutrality is an effective blanket for a host of biases. — David Byrne

No one has the right to live without being shocked. — Philip Pullman

He murmured things that shocked her, expressing himself not in flowery phrases, but with the raw simplicity of a man whose lust for her knew no limits. I have no self-control where you're concerned. Every minute that I'm not with you, all I can think about is being inside you. I hate everything that keeps you separate from me. — Lisa Kleypas

I knew you'd know," Mom said in a stabilizing, more confident, yet still husky voice. A smile broke across her face in the simple relief of her only remaining child not being shocked by the death of her youngest. She smiled genuinely, perhaps for the first time since cradling Dustin's body as the fire truck alarm blared towards the house in response to her 911 call. Her son had died that morning in her arms as she tried resuscitating him with her own breath, but the first indication of her daughter's reaction was calm. The child raised to expect death met the first moments of the news with seeming serenity. — Darcy Leech

He imagines the plane exploding as it touches down, ignited by one of its glints, in a ball of red flame shadowed in black like you see on TV all the time, and he is shocked to find within himself, imagining this, not much emotion, just a cold thrill at being a witness, a kind of bleak wonder at the fury of chemicals, and relief that he hadn't been on the plane himself but was instead safe on this side of the glass, with his faint pronged sense of doom. — John Updike

Will." Her hands pulled at his shirt, and it came away, the buttons tearing, his head shaking free of the fabric, all wild dark hair, Heathcliff on the moors. His hands were less sure on her dress, but it came away as well, off over her head, and was cast aside, leaving Tessa in her chemise and corset. She went motionless, shocked at being so undressed in front of anyone but Sophie, and Will took a wild look at her corset that was only part desire.
"How - ," he said. "Does it come off?"
Tessa couldn't help herself; despite everything, she giggled. "It laces," she whispered. "In the back. — Cassandra Clare

The day I will stop being shocked by human behaviour, is the day I will know that the last bit of my heart purity is lost forever. — Gloria D. Gonsalves

The builder has ginger curly hair on top of his head, and a thick moustache. He has the look of a McDonald's manager from 1970 who spends his evenings sitting in the smoky back row of theatres in Soho. He's tall and muscular with hands the size of shopping baskets and, on the one occasion I did briefly meet him, I stared into his eyes and was shocked by their darkness. His nose is broken in three places and is the size and shape of a chicken nugget. A deep scar runs the length of his cheek hinting at a violent past.
Old tattoos fade on his arms.
The builder may have killed another human being at some point in his life. — Craig Stone

Then she declared loudly, "Smoke break!" and everyone's eyes came to us, some of them shocked seeing as these days you could light up a doobie and no one would blink but if you lit up a smoke, you courted being publicly stoned to death. — Kristen Ashley

There was a beat of silence before Sin said blandly, "I have occasional nightmares about us having a threesome with that meat-head. I'm far from being easily shocked."
"What?" Boyd looked completely taken aback, his eyebrows shooting up. "That's the last thing I thought I'd ever hear from you."
"It isn't exactly a voluntary thing. It's quite horrifying. I usually wake up before he can put his dick in me though." Sin made a revolted expression, his lips twisting in a scowl of disgust.
"So I shouldn't expect to be propositioned for this threesome too in the near future?" Boyd asked jokingly.
Sin stared at Boyd and didn't bother to reply. — Santino Hassell

Where I'm just sort of shocked into the revelation, once again, of this planet is a living organism; this living thing, being alive, is a living thing. It's every breath you take. That was the last one. It'll never come back. You are riding on this wave of awareness, second to second to second. — Daphne Zuniga

Well, you know what they say."

"What's that?"

"If you can't keep it in your pants, keep it in the family."

His eyes bulged, and he choked on his astonishment, throwing me a shocked glance.

Poor adorable Ranger Jethro. He looked like he didn't know whether to laugh or shriek in horror. I'd shocked his delicate man-sensibilities.

He coughed out a strangled response, "I've never heard that before."

"Really? I would have thought - well, you know. Being up here, in the backwoods of Appalachia . . ."

Oh. Shit.

"Did I just say that out loud?" I groaned and shut my eyes.

"Yes. You certainly did. — Penny Reid

I've been shocked by film actors - 25 and under - having such confidence and cockiness to rewrite a scene. My background is more about the director being in control. It's all about yielding. It's an oddly submissive relationship in which you're moulded, Pygmalion-style. — Anne-Marie Duff

Do not be proud of the fact that your grandmother was shocked at something which your are accustomed to seeing or hearing without being shocked ... It may be that your grandmother was an extremely lively and vital animal and that you are a paralytic. — G.K. Chesterton

After being raised as an evangelical Christian, I for years assumed that Christianity was the default - there were Christians, and then there were weirdos. I was shocked when, in college, I found that some people get offended when you tell them, for instance, that their recovery from surgery was a 'miracle.' — David Wong

His hands go to my waist - my waist! And they feel so right. I like this closeness. Maybe I like it too much. A guy has never been this close to me. Never. And I can't believe it's happening, even if it is to keep from being arrested.
My heart beats frantically. Isaiah is hot and scary and hot. Why on earth would a guy like him want to be anywhere near a girl like me?
It's the adrenaline rush. That's what it is. I like how he feels because I'm still experiencing the adrenaline rush from Isaiah's NASCAR driving skills. His arm shifts, and I love how that movement causes his muscles to flex.
Stop it, Rachel. It's not real. Focus. — Katie McGarry

Because I am a mother, I am capable of being shocked: as I never was when I was not one. — Margaret Atwood

My grandpa used to be in the Royal Air Force when he was younger," Liam tells me. "He loved to fly. He had his own airplane. Still does. When I was twelve, he told me that he thought it was time that I learned how to fly a plane."

"You flew a plane when you were twelve?" I give him a shocked look.

"My grandpa's not exactly on the conventional side." The fondness on his face tells me that his grandpa means a great deal to him. "And when I say 'fly'" - he air quotes - "it was him flying and me being copilot. But twelve-year-old me thought that he meant literally fly the plane. So, I was shitting myself."

"I can imagine. I'd shit if someone said that to me now, and I'm twenty-two."

Liam laughs. "I think you'd probably surprise yourself."

"No, I'm pretty sure I'd surprise the person sitting with me - you know, after I shit myself. — Samantha Towle

We have lost the invaluable faculty of being shocked a faculty which has hitherto almost distinguished the Man or Woman from the beast or child. — C.S. Lewis

You're trying to swim upstream against the current. What is there about the natural flow of the river of life that has shocked you so strongly that you should want to swim against the current, even against time? You ought to know you're lost even before you begin. I don't understand you but I love you and I suppose you are obeying the law of your being. — Francoise Gilot

In retrospect, I'm really shocked at how far I put my heart out there on the line with 'Prima Donna'. I seem to have this knack for being able to accomplish that. — Rufus Wainwright

I look at him more than a little shocked by his words knowing how much he likes being right being in charge most people do. — Alyson Noel

Are tou trying to be annoying?" I demanded. My patience was not waning, but entirely gone. "Because if you are, then be assured, you have succeeded."
Jared and Wes looked at me with shocked eyes.
"I am female," I complained. "That 'it' business is really getting on my nerves."
Jared blinked in surprise, then his face settled back into harder lines. "Because of the body you wear?"
Wes glared at him.
"Because of me," I hissed.
"By whose definition?"
"How about by yours? In my species, I am the one that bears young. Is that not female enough for you?"
That stopped him short. I felt almost smug.
'As you should', Melanie approved. 'He's wrong and he's being a pig about it'.
Thank you.
'We girls have to stick together'. — Stephenie Meyer

So the next time you doubt the strangeness of the future, remember how you were born in a hunter-gatherer tribe ten thousand years ago, when no one knew of Science at all. Remember how you were shocked, to the depths of your being, when Science explained the great and terrible sacred mysteries that you once revered so highly. Remember how you once believed that you could fly by eating the right mushrooms, and then you accepted with disappointment that you would never fly, and then you flew. Remember how you had always thought that slavery was right and proper, and then you changed your mind. Don't imagine how you could have predicted the change, for that is amnesia. Remember that, in fact, you did not guess. Remember how, century after century, the world changed in ways you did not guess.
Maybe then you will be less shocked by what happens next. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

Ree-" Grey barked into the icy silence. "Lax!"
The word spat so unexpectedly into her ear had precisely the effect Grey must have intended. It shocked Nan for a split second into a state of not-thinking, just being-
Suddenly, all in an instant she and Neville were one. — Mercedes Lackey

I'm shocked at being recognized. — Dan Stevens