Quotes & Sayings About Element Of Surprise

If you are in difficulties with a book, try the element of surprise: attack it at an hour when it isn't expecting it. — H.G.Wells

Only way to eliminate the element of surprise is to know yourself and now your adversary. — Georges St-Pierre

I think if you're doing a play, you're rehearsing enough that you get to a point where it's freeing again. But in a movie, if you rehearse too much, now you've just shown everybody what you're going to do. And any element of surprise or impulsiveness is taken away. — Geena Davis

The stupidity of a stupid man is exercised in a restricted field; the stupidity of an intelligent man has a much wider diffusion, and a far greater effect, aided as it is by the element of surprise. — Peter Ustinov

Acting in film, you know, I hear all the time, people say 'You did so much better than I thought you would.' So there's an added element of surprise in film, different than in music. — T.I.

There's this element of surprise when you're writing songs, like it's something outside of you that you get to be part of. And it's just exciting. And that's why I keep writing - because I like that feeling. — Nathaniel Rateliff

Because English has so many words of foreign origin, and words that look the same but mean something different depending on their context, and words that are in flux, opening and closing like flowers in time-lapse photography, the human element is especially important if we are to stay on top of the computers, which, in their determination to do our job for us, make decisions so subversive that even professional wordsmiths are taken by surprise. — Mary Norris

Most creativity is a transition from one context into another where things are more surprising. There's an element of surprise, and especially in science, there is often laughter that goes along with the "Aha." Art also has this element. Our job is to remind us that there are more contexts than the one that we're in - the one that we think is reality. — Alan Kay

Unfortunately most magicians are immune to their own magic. We see behind the veil, we live inside the nuts and bolts, the element of surprise is lost on us. But we can help each other. — Menna Van Praag

I took little interest in fleshly infants; it being my private opinion that their attractions did not justify the fuss that was made about them. I had, for instance, early discovered that, if you gave a baby a finger to hold, it held it. This was perhaps interesting, but it wanted greatly in the dear element of surprise. — Dorothy Cottrell

Tal's combinations often exert a sort of paralysing influence on the opponent's play. It would seem that the element of surprise plays a big part in this. — Mark Taimanov

You shouldn't strategize your career if you're in a creative realm. You can't either. I love the unknown. I love the element of surprise. I've always felt really inspired by it. I love the spontaneity of the job. I think you can't really fight against it. — Emily Blunt

A love affair is like a short story
it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning was easy, the middle might drag, invaded by commonplace, but the end, instead of being decisive and well knit with that element of revelatory surprise as a well-written story should be, it usually dissipated in a succession of messy and humiliating anticlimaxes. — F Scott Fitzgerald

The surprise element of her betrayal was what burned me the most. The fact that I never saw it coming. — Emily Giffin

Because we all know one of the main factors of war is the element of surprise. And what could be more surprising than the First Batallion Transvestite Brigade? Airborne Wing. — Eddie Izzard

She never indulged in reveries or tried to be clever in her conversation; she seemed to have drawn a line in her mind beyond which she never went. It was quite obvious that feelings, every kind of relationship, including love, entered into her life on equal terms with everything else, while in the case of other women love quite manifestly takes part, if not in deeds, then in words, in all the problems of life, and everything else is allowed in only in so far as love leaves room for it. The thing this woman esteemed most was the art of living, of being able to control oneself, of keeping a balance between thought and intention, intention and realization. You could never take her unawares, by surprise, but she was like a watchful enemy whose expectant gaze would always be fixed on you, however hard you tried to lie in wait for him. High society was her element, and therefore tact and caution prompted her every thought, word, and movement. — Ivan Goncharov

I quite like the element of surprise, and as much as I have my ideas, I always appreciate ideas that come from other people as well, and I love the mystery of not knowing. — Sam Claflin

I don't outline at all; I don't find it useful, and I don't like the way it boxes me in. I like the element of surprise and spontaneity, of letting the story find its own way. — Khaled Hosseini

In fight, by 'knowing what to do next',
element of surprise can be overcomed. — Toba Beta

The essence of humor is that it should be unexpected, that it should embody an element of surprise, that it should startle us out of that reasonable gravity which, after all, must be our habitual frame of mind. — Agnes Repplier

Vince Russo destroyed the Periodic Table as he only recognises the element of surprise. — Jim Cornette

Many of my poems try to use a comic element to reach a place that isn't comic at all. The comic element works as a surprise. It is unexpected and energizing. — Stephen Dobyns

For me, what is most important is the element of surprise. If I can surprise you with every film of mine, that is exactly what I am trying to do. — Arjun Rampal

When conventional tactics are altered unexpectedly according to the situation, they take on the element of surprise and increase in strategic value . — Sun Bin

When I go to the cinema, I'm often frustrated because I can guess exactly what is going to happen about ten minutes into the screening. So, when I'm working on a subject, I'm always looking for the element of surprise. — Sergio Leone

That's the hardest thing about doing sequels - you've lost the element of surprise. — Sylvester Stallone

Although this table contains a great many elements, from the element oxygen, which is found in the air, to the element aluminum, which is found in cans of soda, the table if elements does not contain one of the most powerful elements that make up our world, and that is the element if surprise. — Lemony Snicket

The element of surprise is vastly overrated in any relationship. — Molly Harper

There's another element in the euro crisis, another weakness of a shared currency, that took many people, myself included, by surprise. It turns out that countries that lack their own currency are highly vulnerable to self-fulfilling panic, in which the efforts of investors to avoid losses from default end up triggering the very default they fear. — Paul Krugman

If you can capture the element of surprise, you're way ahead of the game. — Jay Maisel

The table of elements does not contain one of the most powerful elements that make up our world, and that is the element of surprise. — Lemony Snicket

The first thing I ever thought of when I thought of Buffy , the movie, was the little ... blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed, in every horror movie. The idea of Buffy was to subvert that idea, that image, and create someone who was a hero where she had always been a victim. That element of surprise ... genre-busting is very much at the heart of both the movie and the series. — Joss Whedon

Every actor knows that tragedy, being linear and inevitable, is taxing - but comedy, which depends on the element of surprise, is the hardest act of all. — Robin Morgan

I know," she said, "rejection's not easy. But you reject words, whole pages, long impossible stories, and it feels good once it's done. It's no different rejecting pictures, a picture's right to hang on a wall. And most of these have hung here too long; you don't even see them any more. The best stuff you have, you don't see any more. And they kill each other because they're badly hung. Look, here's a thing of mine and here's your drawing, and they clash. We need distance, it's essential. And different periods need distance to set them apart - unless you're just cramming them together for the shock effect! You simply have to feel it ... There should be an element of surprise when people's eyes move across a wall covered with pictures. We don't want to make it too easy for them. Let them catch their breath and look again because they can't help it. Make them think, make them mad, even ... Now we'll give our colleagues here better light. Why did you leave so much space right here? — Tove Jansson

I try to hang on to as much mystery as possible. How can we go through our lives not wanting to have any element of surprise?' — Charlize Theron

This element of surprise or mystery - the detective element as it is sometimes rather emptily called - is of great importance in a plot. It occurs through a suspension of the time-sequence; a mystery is a pocket in time, and it occurs crudely, as in "Why did the queen die?" and more subtly in half-explained gestures and words, the true meaning of which only dawns pages ahead. Mystery is essential to plot, and cannot be appreciated without intelligence ... To appreciate a mystery, part of the mind must be left behind, brooding, while the other part goes marching on. — E. M. Forster

Because from what I've seen of marriages and relationships, there aren't any rules. You deal with what comes, like anything else in life. There's no template. No freaking outline. And that's what makes relationships interesting, right? The element of surprise. — Kristin Walker

I would like to please the reader, and I think that surprise has to be an element of this, and that may necessitate a certain amount of teasing. To shock the reader is something else again. That has to be handled with great care if you're not going to alienate and hurt him, and I'm firmly against that, just as I disapprove of people who dress with that in mind
dye their hair blue and stick safety pins through their noses and so on. — John Ashbery

I'm enjoying everything in my life, but I think the element of surprise in show business is what makes us really love it, because one day you're sitting by the phone waiting to do something or not doing anything, and the next day you've got the chance of a lifetime. Those little phone calls don't come up so often, but when they come up, it's fantastic. — Elton John

A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless. — Charles De Gaulle

Unbelievably, a goldfish can kill a gorilla. However, it does require a substantial element of surprise. — George Carlin

So much of television is incredibly predictable. You watch the first five minutes and you know where it's going to go. If you can just create an element of surprise in both the storytelling and tone of a show, you're going to be way ahead of the pack. — David Nevins

I love the surprise element of being a mom. — Jessica Capshaw

The initial attraction of a political convention was that often the outcome was not preordained. There was at least some element of surprise. But, now it's like tuning in to a movie where you already know the plot and the ending. It's just not that interesting. — Mark McKinnon

One of the elements of writing that is most delightful to the engaged reader is the element of surprise. And one of the ways to surprise the reader is to set up an expectation that you then veer away from it at the last moment. A stitch in time saves the penny earned. Or something like that. — Douglas Wilson

It could be argued that there is an element of entertainment in every pie, as every pie is inherently a surprise by virtue of its crust. — Janet Clarkson

It all came back to something I'd figured out once about the detective business. There were two ways to go along: underground or on top. I never found out which was best. Underground you had the element of surprise on your side, but it was harder to move around. On top you went everywhere, taking cracks at everybody, and everybody taking cracks at you. You had to be tough to play it that way. Well, I was tough. — Jonathan Latimer

I think it's keeping a surprise element, so that the audience never gets ahead of you. I like to pull the rug out from audiences, I don't like for them to think they know what's happening next. — Jason Graae

On the sequel, you've lost the element of surprise. Usually, on the first one you may not go very, very deep into character; the second one you start to explore the character a bit more. — Sylvester Stallone

When it pleased God ... " (Galatians 1:15). As servants of God, we must learn to make room for Him - to give God "elbow room." We plan and figure and predict that this or that will happen, but we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses. Would we be surprised if God came into our meeting or into our preaching in a way we had never expected Him to come? Do not look for God to come in a particular way, but do look for Him. The way to make room for Him is to expect Him to come, but not in a certain way. No matter how well we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that He may break in at any minute. We tend to overlook this element of surprise, yet God never works in any other way. Suddenly - God meets our life - " ... when it pleased God ... " Keep your life so constantly in touch with God that His surprising power can break through at any point. Live in a constant state of expectancy, and leave room for God to come in as He decides. — Oswald Chambers

It's that element of surprise. When you lose control, you discover new things. — Daniel Lanois

Normal, ordinary people do not think like a Serial Killer. They have no conception of what is going on in a killer's mind, how he operates. They don't read, which is rightfully so. If they have a life to live, they're not going to spend a lot of time reading up on killers if that's not in their interest. Certainly, Serial Killers and killers have the advantage in that they use the element of surprise ... uh ... darkness, and such things as this ... — Richard Ramirez

I think the beauty of documentary work is that it's a mystery - you never know where it's going to lead you. You start out with some notion of it, but it's very different from a script. A script you write, you shoot against, and you know what the story is going to be. There's always the element of surprise, but the surprise comes from performance, from something that's improvised, it comes from someone who sees it inside an already determined framework. In documentary, it's never determined. It's never the same, and affords enormous possibility. — Gail Levin

The element of surprise wasn't allowed near the Periodic Table. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

There's not much TV these days where you really get that element of surprise. There are so many spoilers all the time. — Jenna-Louise Coleman

Hopefully, underlying all my jokes is an element of surprise. — David Spade

If these were Plumber's people, that would mean he knew we were coming. That we'd lost our element of surprise and we were walking into a trap.
Which, you know, was obviously at the top of my to-do list today. — Violet Cross

Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture, ... When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm. — Rick Santorum

I always knew I would be successful. So there was no element of surprise. — Aishwarya Rai Bachchan

Element of surprise is really fun for me in comedy. I have to be surprised, and everything's been done. — Zach Galifianakis

When we get to the point, as we one day will, that both sides know that in any outbreak of general hostilities, regardless of the element of surprise, destruction will be both reciprocal and complete, possibly we will have sense enough to meet at the conference table with the understanding that the era of armaments has ended and the human race must conform its actions to this truth or die. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

A certain strangeness, something of the blossoming of the aloe, is indeed an element in all true works of art: that they shall excite or surprise us is indispensable. — Walter Pater

Prayer adds an element of surprise to your life that is more fun than a surprise party or surprise gift or surprise romance. In fact, prayer turns life into a party, into a gift, into a romance. — Mark Batterson

That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing - which is never an easy thing to do. — V.S. Naipaul