Quotes & Sayings About Not Knowing What To Expect

Expect the best; convert problems into opportunities; be dissatisfied with the status quo; focus on where you want to go, instead of where you're coming from; and most importantly, decide to be happy, knowing it's an attitude, a habit gained from daily practice, and not a result or payoff. — Denis Waitley

Knowing that religion does not furnish grosser bigots than law, I expect little from old judges. — Thomas Jefferson

I have a terror of things being nice and knowing what to expect. Making a photograph is a license to have experiences that I would not otherwise have. — Katy Grannan

Expect everything to happen for your benefit yet do not insist on how it must be experienced. Allow yourselves to be surprised. Remember that what you expect with your physical mind is the least you can be offered by your all-knowing-Self. — Raphael Zernoff

We all have ideas about love and death. We keep a close eye out for them our entire lives, seeking one and avoiding the other, knowing all the while that both are mostly beyond our control. It is a both scary and exciting predicament. In the end, it all depends on how you look at it. One thing is for sure; it is never quite what you expect. — Tonya Hurley

It takes a lot more than just knowing how to put an outfit together to succeed in the fashion industry, so more power to you if this is where you want to be; just don't expect it to be an extended trip to the mall. — Sophia Amoruso

Does he love me?
You're asking the wrong question. What you need to know is are you in a position to give him the love he needs. And whatever happens or doesn't happen will be equally gratifying, knowing that you are capable of love is enough. If it isn't him, it will be someone else ... Don't try to keep a safe distance so as to see what happens. Don't wait to be certain before you take a step. What you give, you will receive, although it might sometimes come from the place you least expect. — Paulo Coelho

Imagine how a man's life would be if he trusted that he was loved by God. How could he interact with the poor and not show partiality, he could love his wife easily and not expect her to redeem him, he would be slow to anger because redemption was no longer at stake, he could be wise and giving with his money because money no longer represented points, he could give up on formulaic religion, knowing that checking stuff off a spiritual to-do list was a worthless pursuit, he would have confidence and the ability to laugh at himself, and he could love people without expecting anything in return. It would be quite beautiful, really. — Donald Miller

Knowing what to expect next gives children a sense of security. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

And even when the apparatus exists, novelty ordinarily emerges only for the man who, knowing with precision what he should expect, is able to recognize that something has gone wrong. — Thomas S. Kuhn

Never expect that your startup can cover every aspect of the market. The key is knowing what segment will respond to your unique offering. Who your product appeals to is just as important as the product itself. — Jay Samit

Knowing what to expect from a teacher is a really good thing, of course: It lets you get the right answers more quickly than you would otherwise. — Alison Gopnik

The first thing I noticed about East Shoal High School was that it didn't have a bike rack. You know a school is run by stuck-up sons of bitches when it doesn't even have a bike rack.

I shoved Erwin behind the blocky green shrubs lining the school's front walk and stepped back to make sure the tires and handlebars were hidden. I didn't expect anyone to steal, touch, or notice him, since his rusty diarrhea color made people subconsciously avert their eyes, but I felt better knowing he was out of harm's way. — Francesca Zappia

Of course we will send postcards to Nutsawoo. And we shall bring him back a present as well. In fact,' she went on, with the instinctive knack every good governess has for turning something enjoyable into a lesson, and vice versa, 'I will expect all three of you to practice your writing by keeping a journal of our trip so that Nutsawoo may know how we spend our days. Why, by the time we return, he will think he has been to London himself! He will be the envy of all his little squirrel friends,' she declared.
Penelope had no way of knowing if this last statement was true. Could squirrels feel envy? Would they give two figs about London? Did Nutsawoo even have friends? — Maryrose Wood

Winnie did not believe in fairy tales. She had never longed for a magic wand, did not expect to marry a prince, and was scornful - most of the time - of her grandmother's elves. So now she sat, mouth open, wide-eyed, not knowing what to make of this extraordinary story. It couldn't - not a bit of it - be true. And yet: — Natalie Babbitt

Men are able to trust one another, knowing the exact degree of dishonesty they are entitled to expect. — Stephen Leacock

I went to a psychiatrist (NBC insisted we all go) and told her I had been through traumatic experiences before and understood that the kidnapping would leave "fingerprints" on me for a while. The key was knowing what to expect. If you get blind drunk, you know you're going to wake up with a hangover. By the same token, I expected post-traumatic stress symptoms - anger, irritability, a sense of isolation - and I experienced those feelings, off and on, for several months. It's like having the monkey on your back again, and being self-aware helps shake him off. — Richard Engel

Perfect life is a contradiction in terms. Therefore we must always expect to find things not up to our highest ideal. Knowing this, we are bound to make the best of everything. — Swami Vivekananda

In my experience, fear comes from not knowing what to expect and not feeling you have any control over what's about to happen. When you feel helpless, you're far more afraid than you would be if you knew the facts. — Chris Hadfield

So many people prefer to live in drama because it's comfortable. It's like someone staying in a bad marriage or relationship - it's actually easier to stay because they know what to expect every day, versus leaving and not knowing what to expect. — Ellen DeGeneres

People fail each other all the time, Mo, and they forgive each other, and start again. It's a question of knowing the other person's limitations. Knowing what's fair to expect of them. Knowing what's fair for them to expect of you. — Erica O'Rourke

It's frustrating - not that I expect to be the same person I was 10 years ago, but I do expect to do certain things. In all honesty, my body for the most part feels really good. But at this point of my career, I have to rely on different parts of my game, knowing how to take some short cuts when you can. — Sheryl Swoopes

Two things you should know about me; The first is that I am deeply suspicious of people in general. It is my nature to expect the worst of them. And the second is that I am unexpectedly good with computers. — Veronica Roth

I've been told that there's a point in every soldier's life when he knows he's going to die. You expect it, of course, in every battle, every ambush, every enemy engagement. You are aware that this could be it. This could be the one that ends your life. But, there's a difference between being aware that you could die, and knowing beyond a doubt, when the situation is hopeless. New dragons dropped from the sky in a dark mass... — Julie Kagawa

You see the suffering of children all the time nowadays. Wars and famines are played out before us in our living rooms, and almost every week there are pictures of children who have been through unimaginable loss and horror. Mostly they look very calm. You see them looking into the camera, directly at the lens, and knowing what they have been through you expect to see terror or grief in their eyes, yet so often there's no visible emotion at all. They look so blank it would be easy to imagine that they weren't feeling much.
And though I do not for a moment equate what I went through with the suffering of those children, I do remember feeling as they look. I remember Matt talking to me
others as well, but mostly Matt
and I remember the enormous effort required even to hear what he said. I was so swamped by unmanageable emotions that I couldn't feel a thing. It was like being at the bottom of the sea. — Mary Lawson

This is the key to life: To expect everything to be given to you from above, yet to be genuinely surprised and forever grateful, when they are. Expecting all good things to be yours, while not knowing how to take anything for granted. If there may be a key in life, this is the key. — C. JoyBell C.

I poke around in the pile, about to settle on some cod chowder, when Peeta holds out a can to me. "Here."
I take it, not knowing what to expect. The label reads LAMB STEW. — Suzanne Collins

Change is both exciting and scary. Learning new skills is the same. Having an idea of what to expect emotionally is as important as knowing what to expect from both real and imagined limitations. — Melinda West Seifert

Leaving him and going out into the paint-fuming air I had the feeling that I had been talking beyond myself, had used words and expressed attitudes not my own, that I was in the grip of some alien personality lodged deep within me. Like the servant about whom I'd read in psychology class who, during a trance, had recited pages of Greek philosophy which she had overheard one day while she worked. It was as though I were acting out a scene from some crazy movie. Or perhaps I was catching up with myself and had put into words feelings which I had hitherto suppressed. Or was it, I thought, starting up the walk, that I was no longer afraid? I stopped, looking at the buildings down the bright street slanting with sun and shade. I was no longer afraid. Not of important men, not of trustees and such; for knowing now that there was nothing which I could expect from them, there was no reason to be afraid. Was that it? I felt light-headed, my ears were ringing. I went on. — Ralph Ellison

There is no greed in knowing what you want, getting what you want, to then having what you want. The only greed in it will be to expect what you want to fall into your lap. — Sarah Pussell

I've come to think that one reason for the oppressive predictability of polemical essays can be found in today's polarized social and political climate. To paraphrase Emerson: "If I know your party, I anticipate your argument." Not merely about politics but about everything. Clearly this acrimonious state of affairs is not conducive to writing essays that display independent thought and complex perspectives. Most of us open magazines, newspapers, and websites knowing precisely what to expect. Many readers apparently enjoy being members of the choir. In our rancorously partisan environment, conclusions don't follow from premises and evidence but precede them. — John Jeremiah Sullivan

Give up as much as you're willing to receive back and give yourself, if that makes any sense. Whatever that is, don't expect more from a person than what you're willing to give, but give it knowing that you're giving it - it's been given, so don't expect anything else. — Emayatzy Corinealdi

I learned as a kid that homo sapiens would rather fight other homo sapiens than microbes. For one thing, it's easier. And there's something satisfying about knowing somebody else is the bad guy and seeing them laid out on the street in front of you. Something human.

Microbes? The little bastards just go hide, multiply, and come back to bite you when you least expect it. — Lee S. Hawke

In an organization which manages by drives people either neglect their job to get on with the current drive, or silently organize for collective sabotage of the drive in order to get their work done. In either event they become deaf to the cry of "wolf." And when the real crisis comes, when all hands should drop everything and pitch in, they treat it as just another case of management-created hysteria. Management by drive is a sure sign of confusion. It is an admission of incompetence. It is a sign that management does not think. But, above all, it is a sign that the company does not know what to expect of its managers and that, not knowing how to direct them, it misdirects them. — Peter F. Drucker

You shrunk and bottled in a glass jar, you're a portable saint. Knowing you is like knowing Jesus. There are billions of us and only one of you so I don't expect much from you personally. There are no answers to my life. But I'm touched by you and fulfilled just by believing. — Chris Kraus

Sometimes it's difficult because you like some regularity in your life, but never knowing who's gonna pop up at what show, what person you might see that you don't expect to see in that city, what problem you're gonna have that night, even the problems at some of these venues, if you look at them the right way, it's an adventure. You're like a cowboy. That's the best part about being in the music industry. You get your gun and you ride your horse. — Colin Munroe

I was no longer afraid. Not of important men, not of trustees and such; for knowing now that there was nothing which I could expect from them, there was no reason to be afraid. — Ralph Ellison

One day we shall domesticate him into a human being & then I shall be able to sketch him. For this is what we have done with ourselves & with God. The little boy will assist his own domestication; he is diligent & cooperative. He cooperates without knowing that the assistance we expect of him is for his own self-sacrifice. Recently, he has had much practice. And so he will go on progressing until little by little
because of essential goodness with which we achieve our salvation
he will pass from actual time to daily time, from meditation to expression, from existence to life. Making the great sacrifice of not being mad. I am not mad out of solidarity with thousands of people who, in order to construct the possible, have also sacrificed the truth which would constitute madness. — Clarice Lispector

Worrying does not accomplish anything. Even if you worry twenty times more, it will not change the situation of the world. In fact, your anxiety will only make things worse. Even though things are not as we would like, we can still be content, knowing we are trying our best and will continue to do so. If we don't know how to breathe, smile,and live every moment of our life deeply, we will never be able to help anyone. I am happy in the present moment. I do not ask for anything else. I do not expect any additional happiness or conditions that will bring about more happiness. The most important practice is aimlessness, not running after things, not grasping. — Thich Nhat Hanh

We tend to think that it's up to others to respect our needs and fill them for us. But that doesn't ever work, and for the following reason:
If you have a hard time knowing what it is you really need, then how on earth can you logically expect someone else to know? — Amanda Butterworth

Your expectation of something unique and dramatic, of some wonderful explosion, is merely hindering and delaying your Self Realization. You are not to expect an explosion, for the explosion has already happened - at the moment when you were born, when you realized yourself as Being-Knowing-Feeling. There is only one mistake you are making: you take the inner for the outer and the outer for the inner. What is in you, you take to be outside you and what is outside, you take to be in you. The mind and feelings are external, but you take them to be intimate. You believe the world to be objective, while it is entirely a projection of your psyche. That is the basic confusion and no new explosion will set it right! You have to think yourself out of it. There is no other way. — Nisargadatta Maharaj

Kadin raised an eyebrow and gave Rob a knowing look. Then he tapped Gregory on the shoulder and said, "It's not that bad. It could be worse."
Gregory shrugged. "I guess I expect too much. All the decent hotels are gone now."
Rob was carrying a delicate white orchid that had been carefully arranged in a low Imari dish. They never visited empty-handed. If it wasn't a special gold box of Gregory's favorite chocolate, it was a small, fine trinket from the antique shop. He placed the arrangement beside Gregory and said, "This is for you. I hope you like orchids. — Ryan Field

Without knowing it, I was acquiring that haughty bearing which is characteristic of so many eccentrics. What other expression would you expect to find on the face of anyone who knows that if he turns his head too quickly, he will see on the faces of others glares of stark terror or grimaces of hatred? Aloofness is the posture of self-defense. — Quentin Crisp

Times change, and people change with the times - the wise ones do. Wisdom lies in knowing when to remember and when to forget. Consistency is not a habit of mind which it is wise to practice or to expect of the human race. — Ayn Rand

You'd expect, as good Darwinian creatures, we would evolve to be fascinated with how the world really is, and we would use language to convey real-world information, we'd be obsessed with knowing the way things are, and we would entirely reject stories that aren't true. They're useless. But that's not the way we work. — Paul Bloom

We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are. If we have sons, we don't mind knowing about our sons' girlfriends, but our daughters' boyfriends? God forbid. But of course when the time is right, we expect those girls to bring back the perfect man to be their husband. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This process of breaking the old habits and making new ones requires strategic planning. Your vision is your why, while your strategic plan is your how. Even though the details are essential and knowing your numbers are important, it is the burning desire in your heart that will get you to the outcome you expect. — Farshad Asl

Could it be ... that the hero is one who is willing to set out, take the first step, shoulder something? Perhaps the hero is one who puts his foot upon a path not knowing what he may expect from life but in some way feeling in his bones that life expects something of him. — P.L. Travers

So he decided he would never listen to anybody he knew? That's just like someone in a fairy tale.'
Knowing he had given his trust amiss, how could he bestow it again?'
That's foolish. Did he expect never to make any mistakes? — Pamela Dean

You desire to know something of my Religion. It is the first time I have been questioned upon it: But I do not take your Curiosity amiss, and shall endeavour in a few Words to gratify it ... I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his [Jesus'] divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and I think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble.
[Letter to Ezra Stiles, March 9, 1790] — Benjamin Franklin

Type A Ellie liked to know the rules, like knowing what to expect. Flying blind made her nervous. He prepared to make her all kinds of nervous. — Samanthe Beck

Your life is carefully watched over, as was mine. The Lord knows both what He will need you to do and what you will need to know. He is kind and He is all-knowing. So you can with confidence expect that He has prepared opportunities for you to learn in preparation for the service you will give. You will not recognize those opportunities perfectly, as I did not. But when you put the spiritual things first in your life, you will be blessed to feel directed toward certain learning, and you will be motivated to work harder. You will recognize later that your power to serve was increased, and you will be grateful. — Henry B. Eyring

You come to the United States not knowing what to expect. Then all your worst prejudices are confirmed. — John Fowles

You win battles by knowing the enemy's timing, and using a timing which the enemy does not expect. — Miyamoto Musashi

When I first started as an editorial cartoonist, I was terrified on a daily basis. Filling that hole the next day, knowing that tens of thousands of people were going to expect something funny. There is still that pressure, but you kind of learn how to cope with it a little better. — Steve Breen

A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley ... He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: To Harry Potter - the boy who lived! — J.K. Rowling

Deda kissed her on the forehaed. "There are difficult days ahead for all of us. Ahead of you particularly, Tania. You and Dasha. Now that Pasha is not here, your parents need you more than ever. Your mettle will be tested, along with everyone else's. There will be only one standard, the standard of survial at all cost, and it will be up to you to say at what price survival. Hold your head high, and if you're going to go down, go down knowing you have not in any way compromised your soul."
Pulling him by the arm, Babushka said, "That's enough. Tania, you do whatever you have to do to survive, and damn your soul. We expect to see you in Molotov next month."
"Never compromise on what your heart tells you to be right, my granddaughter," Deda said, getting up and hugging her. "You hear me?"
"Loud and clear, Deda," Tatiana said, hugging him back. — Paullina Simons