Life Takes You By Surprise Quotes & Sayings

I look down at my black Diablo, head on his paws. He is at my feet. He knows that he must trust to my forgiveness for his daily meat. So he wags his plumed tail and noses at my foot and I pat him gently. Affection, I tell him, is how a dog survives. Knowing how to exist without it is how a woman wrests her life into her own hands. But then it comes, it takes one by surprise. Affection and freedom and the will to risk. Everything that happened since I answered the door to Fleur was leading up to this. — Louise Erdrich

In the very act of writing I felt pleased with what I did. There was the pleasure of having words come to me, and the pleasure of ordering them, re-ordering them, weighing one against another. Pleasure also in the imagination of the story, the feeling that it could mean something. Mostly I was glad to find out that I could write at all. In writing you work toward a result you won't see for years, and can't be sure you'll ever see. It takes stamina and self-mastery and faith. It demands those things of you, then gives them back with a little extra, a surprise to keep you coming. It toughens you and clears your head. I could feel it happening. I was saving my life with every word I wrote, and I knew it. — Tobias Wolff

Death takes us by surprise,
And stays our hurrying feet;
The great design unfinished lies,
Our lives are incomplete
But in the dark unknown,
Perfect their circles seem,
Even as a bridge's arch of stone
Is rounded in the stream.
Alike are life and death,
When life in death survives,
And the uninterrupted breath
Inspires a thousand lives.
Were a star quenched on high,
For ages would its light,
Still traveling downward from the sky,
Shine on our mortal sight.
So when a great man dies,
For years beyond our ken,
The light he leaves behind him lies
Upon the paths of men. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

Life takes constant adjustment and growth. Don't get settled in or it will surprise you and not in a good way. — Jean Williams

In traveling, a companion, in life, compassion,'" she repeats, making sure of it. If she had paper and pencil, it wouldn't surprise me if she wrote it down. "So what does that really mean? In simple terms."
I think it over. It takes me a while to gather my thoughts, but she waits patiently.
"I think it means," I say, "that chance encounters are what keep us going. In simple terms. — Haruki Murakami

Life is a great gift and if we know how, we can make it great. But sometimes life takes us by surprise. We don't know for how long we're going to be here or the ones around us. So make time for the ones you love, those who are precious to you, those ones that you live for and those ones that make living worth while. OKAY? — John Green

Parents teach their children to share, to play fair, to be honest. But ... surprise! Life isn't fair. And it takes a while to transition from the childhood lies to the adult reality. I — Maria V. Snyder

Learning how to live takes a whole life, and, which may surprise you more, it takes a whole life to learn how to die. — Seneca.

A maze is a puzzle to be solved, with twists and turns and dead ends. It requires logical, analytical thinking and usually has a different way out than the way in. The maze could be a metaphor of struggling through life, going one way and then another until the exit takes your by surprise.

A maze signifies entrapment, while the labyrinth, with its unicursal path leading into the center and out again the same way, provides enlightenment. It's the process, the journey into your deepest self, your soul, the part where God abides. It's a passive path, a surrender even, to an order and design repeated through creation. A sacred geometry. — Kristen Heitzmann

All this was new to me. Life takes us by surprise and orders us to move towards the unknown - even when we don't want to and we think we don't need to. — Paulo Coelho

But learning how to live takes a whole life, and, which may surprise you more, it takes a whole life to learn how to die. So many of the finest men have put aside all — Seneca.

Govern your family as you would cook a small fish ------ very very gently. Everything in life happens for a reason and everything takes time... Allowing things to unfold gives you the opportunity to see it's beauty and be able to see every ripple and transformation. Be that diamond in your family and keep it together, family ties are strong look out for each other. Tell that person you LOVE them now don't waste time, call them up surprise them text them, show them you truly care. Have a blessed day everyone and remember I LOVE you too........ — Ainsley Carter

Kade: Life is rarely fair.
Opal: I know that now. Parents teach their children to share, to play fair, to be honest. But ... surprise! Life isn't fair. And it takes a while to transition from the childhood lies to the adult reality. I probably clung to the part of me that still expected fairness longer than most. — Maria V. Snyder

I guess that's just the life of an inventor: what people do with your ideas takes you totally by surprise. — Stephanie Kwolek

And isn't that the sum of all love? The whole story of love? Something that takes you by surprise, something that is seen from a distance, and yet recognized instantly and clearly? Something you are scared of your whole life long, and yet, when faced by it, reach for with open arms?
And isn't that the story of folly, the sum of it? — Omair Ahmad

Life takes us by surprise and orders us to move toward the unknown -even when we don't want to and when we think we don't need to. — Paulo Coelho

Every goodbye calls for preparation, but most times, life takes us by surprise. — Elisabetta Gnone