Startles Quotes & Sayings

Bess stepped back and looked at Nancy admiringly. 'Your hunches are so often right it startles me. — Carolyn Keene

Grief is an artist of powers as various as the instruments upon which he plays his dirges for the dead, evoking from some the sharpest, shrillest notes, from others the low, grave chords that throb recurrent like the slow beating of a distant drum. Some natures it startles; some it stupefies. To one it comes like the stroke of an arrow, stinging all the sensibilities to a keener life; to another as the blow of a bludgeon, which in crushing benumbs. — Ambrose Bierce

The annoying this was that their authority loomed larger by the hour. One is not aware of it, but these men are kings. Throwing open my rooms, they would say, "Everything here belongs to us." They would fall upon my scraps of thought: "This is ours." They would challenge my story, "Talk," and my story would put itself at their service. In haste, I would rid myself of myself. I distributed my blood, my innermost being among them, lent them the universe, gave them the day. Right before their eyes, though they were not at all startles, I became a drop of water, a spot of ink. I reduced myself to them. The whole presence of me passed in full view before them, and when at last nothing was present but my perfect nothingness and there was nothing more to see, they ceased to see me too. Very irritated, they stood up and cried out, "All right, where are you? Where are you hiding? Hiding is forbidden, it is an offense," etc. — Maurice Blanchot

And we who have always thought of happiness climbing, would feel the emotion that almost startles when happiness falls. — Cy Twombly

To Solitude
O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,
Nature's observatory - whence the dell,
Its flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell,
May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep
'Mongst boughs pavillion'd, where the deer's swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell.
But though I'll gladly trace these scenes with thee,
Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,
Whose words are images of thoughts refin'd,
Is my soul's pleasure; and it sure must be
Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,
When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee. — John Keats

Our sincere and innermost anxiety is not that we are insufficient. Our sincere and innermost fear is that we are prevailing and dominate. Our proficiency, not our incompetence is the misapprehension that most startles and worries us. It's when we contemplate in retrospect that we demand of ourselves why am I extraordinary, striking, talented, and remarkable? Essentially, Why can't you? A child of God blessed from the crown of you head to the soul of your feet. There is nonentity progressive about shrinking so individuals won't feel apprehensive around you. Every individual is predestined to shine. Humans were conceived to manifest the exaltation, magnificence, splendour, beauty or the glory of God imbedded in us . this gift is not some individual but in everyone — Archibald Gumiro

Poetry is like an unexpected noise in the night: the creak of a door, a footstep on the porch, the soft scuffle of a moth against the screen, which rouses every sense to an instant alert. So comes poetry to the drowsy mind, which startles a moment, wonders, and returns to sleep. — Christopher Morley

A poem is good if it contains a new analogy and startles the reader out of the habit of treating words as counters. — T. E. Hulme

I love you."
The words come out almost in a panic, as if there's no time. As if he's about to walk into Eden again, and I've got to say it before he disappears behind the door.
"I love you too."
Jimmy' response startles me back to the room, the tobacco tin forgotten in my hand. I close it and set it on the counter, afraid of whatever drug it is inside that has me hallucinating.
"I must be losing my mind," I say, shaking my head. "I thought I just heard you say that you loved me."
"I did," Jimmy replies.
"You did?"
"Of course. You said it to me first. It woulda been rude to leave ya hangin' there, wouldn't it? — Ryan Winfield

I could heal you-"
"No," he says, sharply enough that it startles me. "Everyone is dead. Gavin, Jedro, Melita ... All gone. My life, my friends. I lived for the blink of an eye. But I've been dying for a very long time. — Rae Carson

No matter that you anticipate a thing; you get so used to it as part of the future that its actuality, its arrival, its force and presence, startles you, takes you by surprise, as would a ghost suddenly appearing in the room wearing familiar perfume and boots. — Lorrie Moore

I scarcely remember counting upon happiness - I look not for it if it be not in the present hour - nothing startles me beyond the moment. The setting sun will always set me to rights, or if a sparrow come before my Window I take part in its existence and pick about the gravel. — John Keats

In a universe where all life is in movement, where ever fact seen in perspective is totally engaging, we impose stillness on lively young bodies, distort reality to dullness, make action drudgery. Those who submit - as the majority does - are conditioned to a life lived without their human birthright: work done with the joy and creativity of love.
But what are schools for if not to make children fall so deeply in love with the world that they really want to learn about it? That is the true business of schools. And if they succeed in it, all other desirable developments follow of themselves.
In a proper school, no fact would ever be presented as a soulless one, for the simple reason that there is no such thing. Every facet of reality, discovered where it lives, startles with its wonder, beauty, meaning. — Marjorie Spock

Bad art is never really enjoyed in the same sense in which good art is enjoyed. It is only "liked": it never startles, prostrates, and takes captive. — C.S. Lewis

Sam counts the money carefully. I watch him in the mirror. "You know what I wish?" he asks when he's done.
"What?"
"That someone would convert my bed into a robot that would fight other bed robots to the death for me."
That startles a laugh out of me. "That would be pretty awesome."
A slow, shy smile spreads across his mouth. "And we could take bets on them. And be filthy rich."
I lean my head against the frame of the stall, looking at the tile wall and the pattern of yellowed cracks there, and grin. "I take back anything I might have
implied to the contrary. Sam, you are a genius. — Holly Black

I heard my name." Ash's voice startles me. "You tow better not be making fun of me about this stupid bra Mama's making me wear. I've had it with the jokes. I'll break both your noses if it doesn't stop. — Abbi Glines

Slowly, silently, I reach out and slip the glass out of her hand.
"What do you think you're doing?"
The old lady's voice startles me and I jump back. Mrs. Reynolds has one eye open like tha guy from the cartoon monster movie. "I, uh, thought you were napping."
"Do I look like I'm napping?"
"Right now you don't. — Simone Elkeles

The most effective indirect approach is one that lures or startles the opponent into a false move - so that, as in ju-jitsu, his own effort is turned into the lever of his overthrow. — B.H. Liddell Hart

In the country, I stopped being a person who, in the words of Sylvia Boorstein, startles easily. I grew calmer, but beneath that calm was a deep well of loneliness I hadn't known was there ... Anxiety was my fuel. When I stopped, it was all waiting for me: fear, anger, grief, despair, and that terrible, terrible loneliness. What was it about? I was hardly alone. I loved my husband and son. I had great friends, colleagues, students. In the quiet, in the extra hours, I was forced to ask the question, and to listen carefully to the answer: I was lonely for myself. [p. 123] — Dani Shapiro

I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me (Jer. 32:40b). That is a different kind of fear from the one that startles you. God promises to put it in you - not to shake and undermine your assurance, but to guard and maintain it. — John Flavel

The starkness of this truth startles me, illuminates an awareness in me of something I could not - or would not - acknowledge before.

I cannot let you die, because I cannot face a future without you. — Julie Eshbaugh

Without boat or a light, what could he do to save Annie if she should, by whatever miracle it might be, answer him? And he damns himself, with a willingness that startles him, for turning the boat loose, for having taken no precaution to keep the matches dry. Taking the matches out of his pocket, he finds that the heads are either already gone, or they crumble as soon as he touches them to see if they are there. But he continues to take the dead sticks out of his pocket one at a time and to stand them upright inside the sweatband of his hat. It is though his mind, which like his body has begun to work apart from his will, is gambling that absurdity will be more bearable than reasonableness. — Wendell Berry

The first snow always startles. It covers the tricycle in the driveway, turning its frame into an abstact sculpture that says: See how quickly yesterday turns into today. — Peggy Noonan

The Society of North American Magic Realists welcomes its newest, most dazzling member, Louis Maistros. His debut novel is a thing of wonder, unlike anything in our literature. It startles. It stuns. It stupefies. No novel since CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES has done such justice to New Orleans. If Franz Kafka had been able to write like Peter Straub, this might have been the result. — Donald Harington

To know what you want to say is not the best condition for writing a novel. Novels go happiest when you discover something you did not know you knew: an insight into one of your opaque characters, a metaphor that startles you ... a truth ... that used to elude you. — Norman Mailer

I don't know if anyone's ever told you this", he begins. He doesn't blush, and his eyes don't dart away. Instead I find myself staring into a pair of oceans - one perfect, the other blemished by that tiny ripple. "You're very attractive."
I've been complimented on my appearance before. But never in his tone of voice. Of all the things he's said, I don't know why this catches me off guard. But it startles me so much that without thinking I blurt out, "I could say the same about you." I pause. "In case you didn't know."
A slow grin spreads across his face. "Oh, trust me. I know. — Marie Lu

the sapphire depth
of my own love...startles
and warms
and wounds my soul. — Sanober Khan

But "ma'am" doesn't translate in the North, where it just startles and offends. — Rob Sheffield

I love you," Julius observed at last. "To a degree that frankly startles me. — K.J. Charles

Abruptly, Elliot startles us all by standing and pulling his chair back so it scrapes across the tile floor. All eyes turn to him. He gazes down at Kate for one moment and then drops to one knee beside her.
Oh. My. God.
He reaches for her hand, and silence settles like a blanket over the entire restaurant as everyone stops eating, stops talking, stops walking, and stares.
"My beautiful Kate, I love you. Your grace, your beauty, and your fiery spirit have no equal, and you have captured my heart. Spend your life with me. Marry me."
Holy shit! — E.L. James

Sometimes he sits at your feet looking into your face with an expression so gentle and caressing that the depth of his gaze startles you. — Theophile Gautier

There's something about blue eyes.
The kind of blue that startles you every time they're lifted in your direction. The kind of blue that makes you ache for them to look at you again. Not the blue green or blue gray, the blue that's just blue.
Cricket has those eyes. — Stephanie Perkins

I catch a glimpse of his abdomen. Yummy. "Yummy tummy."
He startles. "What?"
"Hmm? — Stephanie Perkins

Music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startles out wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Galen and Rayna are close."
I gasp. "How do you know that? I can't feel them." My heart turns traitor, beating like I just ran five miles uphill. It has nothing to do with sensing and everything to do with the mention of Galen's name.
"I'm a Tracker, Emma. I can sense them from almost across the world. Especially Rayna. And from the feel of things, Galen is flittering that cute little fin of his like crazy to get back to you. Rayna must be riding on his back."
"You can tell what she's doing?"
"I can tell how fast she's moving. No one can swim as fast as Galen, Rayna included. He must be pretty impatient to see you."
"Yeah. Impatient for me to change so he can have another royal subject to order around."
Toraf's laughter startles me, not because it's loud, but because his mood seems to swing around on an axis. "Is that what you think?" he says. — Anna Banks

If she possessed a genius - and a growing number of us think she did - it was a capacity for understanding and trusting the improvisational nature of her will. This might seem a contradictory state, and for most of us it would be. We have hopes and make plans, and if they are dashed or waylaid, we naturally rationalize and redraw the map to locate ourselves anew. Or else we brood and too firmly root. Very few can step forward again and again in what amounts to veritable leaps into the void, where there are no ready holds, where little is familiar, where you get constantly stuck in the thickets of your uncertainties and fears. Fan was different. As we have come to realize, she was not one to hold herself back. Or to be fettered. In this way she startles us, inspires us. She was someone who pursued her project as a genuine artist might, following with focus and intensity as well as an enduring innocence a goal she could not quite yet understand or see but wholly believed. — Chang-rae Lee

In language that's lyrical and haunting, Cheryl Strayed writes about bliss and loss, about the kind of grace that startles and transforms us in ordinary moments. — Ursula Hegi

From the wrestling of his own soul with the great enemy, comes that depth and mystery which startles us in Hamlet. — Jones Very

Those of us who consider ourselves to be somehow involved in the birthing of a new age, should discover Gaia as well. The idea of Gaia may facilitate the task of converting destructive human activities to constructive and cooperative behavior. It is an idea which deeply startles us, and in the process, may help us as a species to make the necessary jump to planetary awareness. — James Lovelock

I press my face to the window, and I think to myself, There will never be another day like this day. This day will end. Everything passes in front of me with alarming speed, and though I recognize the splendour of the trees and the radiance of the sun, I am detached. This startles and unsettles me. — Kate Mulgrew

It must be so,-Plato, thou reasonest well! Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality? Or whence this secret dread and inward horror Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 'T is the divinity that stirs within us; 'T is Heaven itself that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man. Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought! — Joseph Addison

I'm thinking that I like you, and that's a problem for me."
His serious tone startles me. "Why's it a problem?"
"Because I don't like people," he says bluntly. "I deal with people. — J.M. Darhower