Quotes & Sayings About Never Being Surprised

I do like being surprised by directors and producers and being offered parts I would never have considered, including parts that aren't necessarily obvious but which would test me. — Stephen Fry

There are people who are surprised at my politics and being a conservative and the rest of it. But the truth of the matter is, to my knowledge, I have never been overlooked or turned down for anything that I wanted to do that was being offered to me. — Wayne Newton

I've never gone anywhere where the men have come up to my infantile expectations. I always have gone through life constantly being surprised by the extreme, marvelous qualities of a small minority of men. But I can't see the rest of them. They seem awful rubbish. — Rebecca West

You realize that if you allow me to court you, all your opposition to marriage is going to have to be reconsidered." She smiled, feigning innocence. "What opposition to marriage?" "Excellent." "But I am thinking we should have a long courtship." "Why?" He looked surprised. "Because I find I've developed a taste for adventure." "That sounds dangerous. Not at all in character for a delicate flower." She laughed. "We know I've never been good at being a delicate flower. Besides, it shan't be too dangerous." "How can you be so sure?" She smiled brilliantly at him, taking his breath away. "Because, on my next adventure, I'll have you by my side." He — Sarah MacLean

As a good picture would come, I would never know exactly what I had done. When you did see it, it would strike you as a great surprise - who did that? How did it happen? Being surprised by your own work makes you both less serious and have serious reverence. — Emmet Gowin

At present I do not feel that I have seen more than the fringe of poverty. Still, I can point to one or two things I have definitely learned by being hard up. I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning. — George Orwell

There was this other apocalypse this one time. And, well, I took off. But this time, I don't ... I don't know."
"Well, what's different?"
"Well, I guess I was kinda new to being around humans before. And now I've seen a lot more, gotten to know people, seen what they're capable of and I guess I just realize how amazingly ... screwed up they all are. I mean, really, really screwed up in a monumental fashion."
"Oh."
"And they have no purpose that unites them, so they just drift around, blundering through life until they die. Which they-they know is coming, yet every single one of them is surprised when it happens to them. They're incapable of thinking about what they want beyond the moment. They kill each other, which is clearly insane, and yet, here's the thing. When it's something that really matters, they fight. I mean, they're lame morons for fighting. But they do. They never ... They never quit. And so I guess I will keep fighting, too. — Joss Whedon

You're never safe from being surprised until you're dead. — L.M. Montgomery

Perhaps they never left the island when construction was complete," Otto replied.
Wing raised an eyebrow. "A true job for life."
"Or a life for a job," Otto countered. He wouldn't be at all surprised, given the emphasis on total secrecy, if H.I.V.E. offered an "aggressive" retirement package for lower-level employees. Here, being fired was probably a term that was taken a little too literally. — Mark Walden

So, how is it that you don't have a girlfriend?" I asked boldly.
Joel shrugged.
"Have you ever had a girlfriend?" There was no way that he'd never had a girlfriend.
He shrugged again.
"You're not serious."
"You're surprised?"
"I'm sorry, do you own a mirror?"
Joel laughed in that I'll-never-understand-women kind of way. "I've never wanted one," he admitted, though it seemed that there was more to it.
"What? A mirror? Or a girlfriend?"
He laughed again, even harder this time. "A girlfriend."
"Are you gay?"
He smiled. "No, I'm not gay."
"Oh." I blushed. Why was I being so nosy all of a sudden? — Shawn Kirsten Maravel

All of [motherhood] surprised me. It surprised me from the very first second I saw Jack. I'd believed that my pregnancy was a condition. It never computed. And there he was. Everyone made fun of me because I stared at him for months and months, not being able to believe he was real. — Meg Ryan

I was surprised to learn that doing household chores qualifies as romantic for most of you [women]. That's exactly why you should never hire a butler if you strike it rich - the minute that Jeeves starts unloading the dishwasher without being asked, your wife is going to start humping his leg. — Scott Adams

You realize that is you allow me to court you, all your opposition to marriage is going to have to be reconsidered."
She smiled, feigning innocence."What opposition to marriage?"
"Excellent."
"But I'm thinking we should have a long courtship."
"Why?" He looked surprised.
"Because i find I've developed a taste for adventure."
"That sounds dangerous. Not at all in character for a delicate flower."
She laughed." We know I've never been good at being a delicate flower. Besides, it shan't be too dangerous."
"How can you be so sure?"
She smiled brilliantly at him, taking his breath away.
"Because, on my next adventure, I'll have you by my side. — Sarah MacLean

There are four warring interests in spaceflight: ambitiousness of vision, urgency of timetable, reduction of cost, and safety to astronauts. These can never be entirely reconciled. In the sixties, urgency and ambitiousness were the driving factors, and because this was understood and accepted, the massive cost and risk were accepted as well. We now seem to be at a moment when reduction of cost is paramount, with safety coming in a very close second. This being the case, we should not be surprised that ambitiousness and urgency have had to be set aside altogether. But it's ludicrous to claim, as I often hear people do, that "NASA has lost its vision." NASA has lost support, not vision. Wernher — Margaret Lazarus Dean

Had they nothing else to say to one another? More serious communications were, to be sure, passing between their eyes. As they tried to make conversation, they felt the same languor stealing over them both, as if their whispering voices were being drowned by the deep continuous murmur of their souls. Surprised by the strange sweetness of it, they never thought to describe or to explain what they felt. Coming delights, like tropical beaches, send out their native enchantment over the vast spaces that precede them - a perfumed breeze that lulls and drugs you out of all anxiety as to what may yet await you below the horizon. — Gustave Flaubert

And yet we went on being surprised that they didn't love us. They'd come to our hospitals. We'd give a woman some medicine but she wouldn't look at us, and certainly never give us a smile. — Svetlana Alexievich

I'm always taken aback by things that are successful that I think are just crap, and then I'm completely surprised when things I do end up being successful because you walk into things and you never know ... It's just really remarkable. — Kevin Spacey

Pure concepts of the understanding. So the Humean problem is completely solved, though in a way that would have surprised its inventor. The solution secures an a priori origin for the pure concepts of the understanding, and for the universal laws of nature it secures a status as valid laws of the understanding; but it does this in such a way as to limit the use of these concepts to experience only, and it grounds them in a relation between the understanding and experience that is the complete reverse of anything that Hume envisaged - instead of the concepts being derived from experience, that experience is derived from them. My line of argument yields the following result: All synthetic a priori principles are simply principles of possible experience; they can never be applied to things in themselves, but only to appearances as objects of experience. Hence pure mathematics as well as pure natural science can never bear on anything except appearances — Anonymous

I'm continually surprised at how much hurt people carry around with them. People who smile and ask you how your day is going can have their mind being ripped apart in ways you could never have conceived. People carry around so many layers of hurt. — Fran Seen

What if this was a sign? Maybe I'm not supposed to be an Outsider.
He surprised her by taking her hand and threading his fingers through hers. "You already are an Outsider. You fit everywhere. You just don't see it yet."
She stared at their hands. He'd never done that before.
Roar gave her a droll look. "It's just odd having you lay your hand on my arm all the time," he said, responding to her thoughts.
Yes, but this feels intimate. Don't you think it does? I don't mean that I think we're being too intimate. I guess I do. Roar, sometimes it's really hard to get used to this.
Roar flashed a grin. "Aria, this isn't intimate. If I were being intimate with you, trust me, you'd know."
She rolled her eyes. Next time you say something like that, you should toss a red rose and then leave with a swish of your cape. — Veronica Rossi

But now I realise that true charity consists in putting up with all one's neighbour's faults, never being surprised by his weakness, and being inspired by the least of his virtues . . . When God, under the old law, told His people to love their neighbours as themselves, He had not yet come down to earth. As He knew how much we love ourselves, He could not ask us to do more. But when Jesus gave His apostles a "new commandment, His own commandment," He did not ask only that we should love our neighbours as ourselves but that we should love them as He loves them and as He will love them to the end of time. O Jesus, I know You command nothing that is impossible. You know how weak and imperfect I am, and You know only too well that I could never love the other nuns as You love them if You Yourself did not love them within me. — John Beevers

What are you? From where did you come? I have never seen anything like you. The Creator Raven looked at Man and was ... surprised to find that this strange new being was so much like himself. — Eskimo Creation Myth

I never would have been able to tell!" I was finally able to put my finger on it, and it's something that anyone who is meeting a transgender person for the first time should keep in mind. Saying you "never would have known" is actually very rude. Being surprised that a person looks like the gender they are just reinforces a stereotype that transgender people aren't usually attractive or able to pass, and worse, the stereotype that physical appearances even matter. A person's true essence comes from within! I — Jazz Jennings

I would never want to do something just for the sake of being independent or for the sake of doing big films. I'm always surprised by the material I'm attracted to. And that's how I like it. I like to be surprised. — Alice Englert

Why are you being so nice to me?' I asked her.
'You know,' she said, 'when you say stuff like that I just want to slap you.'
'What?'
'You heard me.' She picked up her beer and took a swallow, still watching me. Then she said, 'Colie, you should never be surprised when people treat you with respect. You should expect it.'
I shook my head. 'You don't know-' I began. But, as usual, she didn't let me finish.
'Yes,' she said simply. 'I do know. I've watched you, Colie. You walk around like a dog waiting to be kicked, and when someone does, you pout and cry like you didn't deserve it.'
'No one deserves to be kicked,' I said.
'I disagree,' she said flatly. 'You do if you don't think you're worth any better. — Sarah Dessen

What surprised me about directing is how much I loved it and how happy I am to be on the set. I love coming to work in the morning. What I realized is that I never loved acting. I don't love being in the hair and makeup chair. I don't [love] being in costume. To me the strangest thing is that I've just spent the majority of my life in one aspect of this business, and because I was fortunate enough to become successful I never questioned whether I felt at home and found out later in life that I'm much happier directing. — Angelina Jolie

True charity consists in putting up with all one's neighbors fault's; never being surprised by his weakness, and being inspired by the least of his virtues. — Therese Of Lisieux

I should not be surprised," said Mr. Graham, "that the day should come when men will refuse to believe in God simply on the ground of the apparent injustice of things. They would argue that there might be either an omnipotent being who did not care, or a good being who could not help, but that there could not be a being both all good and omnipotent or else he would never have suffered things to be as they are. — George MacDonald

You have to be patient with him. Travis doesn't remember much about it, but he was close to his mom, and after we lost her he was never the same. I thought he'd grow out of it, you know, with him being so young. It was hard on all of us, but Trav ... he quit trying to love people after that. I was surprised that he brought you here. The way he acts around you, the way he looks at you; I knew you were somethin' special. — Jamie McGuire

What the hell is it about brooding guys that's attractive to women, anyway? I've become one since Dori's call three weeks ago, and it's made me more of a chick magnet. I shouldn't be surprised - being a dick never hurt my appeal before. — Tammara Webber

Sydney," Adrian interrupted, cupping my face in his hands. "Never, ever think like that. I don't
regret anything we've faced. Being with you is the best thing that's ever happened to me, the one
perfect decision I've made in a lifetime of fumbling and poor judgment. I'd go through it all again to
be by your side. Never doubt that. Never doubt how I feel about you."
"Oh, Adrian," I said, letting him wrap me in his arms, surprised at the bubble of emotion welling
up within me.
He held me tightly. "I love you. If anything, I can't believe you gave up everything you did to be
with me. You changed your whole life for me."
"My life didn't even begin until I met you," I told him fiercely. — Richelle Mead

The day I went to see my father to say I wanted to become an architect, he was a bit surprised, because for him being a builder is much more than being just an architect. He was very angry, and I never thought I could do something else. — Renzo Piano

I am becoming increasingly difficult to please as a reader, but I adore being surprised by a really wonderful book, written by someone I've never heard of before. — Alexandra Fuller

The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered Man! Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived. — Dalai Lama XIV

Testimony in new age writing affirms the way in which embracing a love ethic transforms life for the good. Yet a lot of this information only reaches those of us who have class privilege. And often, individuals whose lives are rich in spiritual and material well-being, who have diverse friends from all walks of life who nurture their personal integrity, tell the rest of the world these things are impossible to come by. I am talking here about the many prophets of doom who tell us that racism will never end, sexism is here to stay the rich will never share their resources. We would all be surprised if we could enter their lives for a day. Much of what they are telling us cannot be had, they have. But in keeping with a capitalist-based notion of well-being, they really believe there is not enough to go around, that the good life can only be had by a few. — Bell Hooks

Dad always warned that it was misleading when one imagined people, when one sas them in the Mind's Eye, because one never remembered them as they really were, with as many inconsistencies as there were hairs on a human head (100,000 to 200,000). Instead, the mind used a lazy shorthand, smoothed the person over into their most dominating characteristic
their pessimism or insecurity (something really being lazy, turning them into either Nice or Mean)
and one made the mistake of judging them from this basis alone and risked, on a subsequent encounter, being dangerously surprised. — Marisha Pessl