The Unexpected Things Quotes & Sayings

It may be no coincidence that the world's richest man is a computer programmer. Programmers have "theories" about how software will behave when they change a line of code. Those theories rarely hold up to their first encounter with reality. Unsuccessful programmers could probably wax eloquent about how things should be different. Successful programmers just debug their code. Such a profession would quickly wean a person from idealistic notions about how to make a change. Successful programmers soon learn that it is more profitable to challenge their own thinking than to curse their computers when faced with unexpected results. — Ron Davison

I think that in the process of writing, all kinds of unexpected things happen that shift the poet away from his plan and that these accidents are really what we mean when we talk about poetry. — John Ashbery

I find no change of consequence in grown people, I do not miss the dead. It does not surprise me to hear that this friend or that friend died at such and such a time, because I fully expected that sort of news. But somehow I had made no calculation on the infants. It never occurred to me that infants grow up ... These unexpected changes, from infancy to youth, and from youth to maturity, are by far the most startling things I meet with. — Mark Twain

The Creator of all men and all things has provided the challenge of change, the necessity for acceptance, and variations of all patterns. We live by change, by struggle and the unexpected; for only in change, struggle, and the unexpected can we achieve growth. — Faith Baldwin

If I have a day off, I want to get on a plane and go to Paris! If I have a couple hours off work, I want to run to the market and make a four-course meal. I like to do things that are unexpected. — Ali Larter

Look back upon winter with gratitude. Spring is the harvest of the darker months - everything you know starts to grow in darkness. Don't write and tell me that winter brought you only colds or the ubiquitous virus. Perhaps it did bring those (and to me as well). Who goes through the chilly months unscathed? But it also brought things not to be forgotten - silver moons and snow, brilliant under stars; it brought Christmas and a new year, and to each of us something happy, something unexpected, which was not another problem but a joy. For the pendulum swings; nothing is static; and the road, however long, does turn. — Faith Baldwin

I don't like that particular word 'shocking.' I'm looking for the unexpected. I'm looking for things I've never seen before ... I was in a position to take those pictures. I felt an obligation to do them. — Robert Mapplethorpe

That was what counted, she told herself: those unexpected moments of appreciation, unanticipated glimpses of beauty or kindness - any of the things that attached us to this world, that made us forget, even for a moment, its pain and its transience. — Alexander McCall Smith

Shama is quietude of mind, tranquility, equanimity, and composure. First, learn to compose yourself. Rather than expecting the external world to conform to your expectations, learn to expect the unexpected. Regard turmoil as normal and take worldly blows in stride. Expecting things to be perfect leads to disappointment. Disappointment and tranquility cannot coexist. — Pandit Rajmani Tigunait

It is so often the odd, the unexpected, the apparently trifling, that stamps itself upon the memory for ever, while much more memorable things pass away like a breath of wind. — Esther Meynell

Sometimes, you think you have forgotten everything, that the rust and dust of the years have destroyed all the things we once entrusted to their voracious appetite. But all it takes is a noise, a smell, a sudden, unexpected touch, and suddenly the alluvion of time sweeps pitilessly over us, and our memories light up with all the brilliance and fury of a lightning flash — Julio Llamazares

[In the case of research director, Willis R. Whitney, whose style was to give talented investigators as much freedom as possible, you may define 'serendipity' as] the art of profiting from unexpected occurrences. When you do things in that way you get unexpected results. Then you do something else and you get unexpected results in another line, and you do that on a third line and then all of a sudden you see that one of these lines has something to do with the other. Then you make a discovery that you never could have made by going on a direct road. — Irving Langmuir

Literature for me ... tries to heal the harm done by stories. (How much harm? Most of the atrocities of history have been created by stories, e.g., the Jews killed Jesus.) I follow Sartre that the freedom the author claims for herself must be shared with the reader. So that would mean that literature is stories that put themselves at the disposal of readers who want to heal themselves. Their healing power lies in their honesty, the freshness of their vision, the new and unexpected things they show, the increase in power and responsibility they give the reader. — Geoff Ryman

I am a Smedry, and we do ridiculous, unexpected, eccentric things like this all the time! Ha-ha! — Brandon Sanderson

I deeply believe that everything is relative. We need the bad to appreciate the good, and vice versa. We need something unexpected to happen in order for us to realize that everything was expected. It's our relation to those things that we are able to decide how we feel and the level of intensity of those feelings. Such is relativity — Shania Twain

'Yes. He was happy. He said, on that last visit, that some things were worth the wait. The world changes in unexpected ways, and all we can do is live in it and take joy in how it surprises us.' — Amy Rae Durreson

My dad has a dry, deadpan sense of humor, and my mom has an unexpected, wacky take on things. They really encouraged laughing at ourselves and the weirdness of situations that come up growing up in politics. — Kristin Gore

The turn from this end [despair] to a new beginning came from three things. A blooming cherry tree, the unexpected kindness of Scottish workers and their families, and the Bible. — Jurgen Moltmann

I have to smile. He's such a dork. But I'm starting to realize the one good thing that's happened: he's my dork. — Ally Carter

If we knew that we would meet the Lord tomorrow-through our premature death or through His unexpected coming-what would we do today? What confessions would we make? What practices would we discontinue? What accounts would we settle? What forgivenesses would we extend? What testimonies would we bear? If we would do those things then, why not now? — Dallin H. Oaks

I had never read any of the mystics, because I have never felt called to read them. In reading, as in other things, I always attempt practical obedience. There is nothing more favorable to intellectual progress, for as far as possible I do not read anything except for that which I am hungry in the moment, when I am hungry for it, and then I do not read ... I eat. God mercifully prevented me from reading the mystics, so that it would be evident to me that I had not fabricated this absolutely unexpected contact. — Simone Weil

Love surprises us in unexpected ways, in ways that are beyond our comprehension. It's never the sweet words or the mushy gifts that matter. What matters more are little things like caring about someone and not being able to sleep till you're sure that the one you love is safe and sound. — Sudeep Nagarkar

The best training is to learn to accept everything as it comes, as from Him whom our soul loves. The tests are always unexpected things, not great things that can be written up, but the common little rubs of life, silly little nothings, things you are ashamed of minding one scrap — Amy Carmichael

Kilgore Trout was shadowing him, keen to know what Billy had suspected or seen. Most of Trout's novels, after all, dealt with time warps and extrasensory perception and other unexpected things. Trout believed in things like that, was greedy to have their existence proved. "You ever put a full-length mirror on the floor, and then have a dog stand on it?" Trout asked Billy. "No." "The dog will look down, and all of a sudden he'll realize there's nothing under him. He thinks he's standing on thin air. He'll jump a mile. — Kurt Vonnegut

Old age is the most unexpected of all things that can happen to a man. — Leon Trotsky

It is the human things that make life good, the unexpected kindness, the friendly note, the bracing word, the neighbour's extra loaf of bread she leaves at our back door. — Stevie Ray Vaughan

Clearly, audiences are very accepting of A-list talent both giving them what they want - Tom Hanks is the most classic example - and then going on, from time to time, to do things that are unexpected. That's part of what makes people want to go to the movies and not just sit home. — Mark Canton

My ministers have informed me that Alyss is ridding her land of Glass Eyes."
Overriding the imperative that Redd embedded in them is harder than she thought," added Ripkins.
In other words, they're designed to kill and nothing more."
The bodygaurds bowed that this was so.
Perhaps the trick is not the override their imperative," Arch mused, "but the reprogram them to acknowledge a differnent master. Everyone in Woderland
even the otherwise rebellious Redd Heart
is, was, or always has been occupied with inventing things. But what good are things if there no clever schemes in which to use them? I putthings to unexpected and imaginative use."
Seeing Redd — Frank Beddor

When I'm asked about my work, I try to explain that there is no mystery involved. It is work. But things happen all the time that are unexpected, uncontrolled, unexplainable, even magical. The work prepares you for that moment. Suddenly the clouds roll in and the soft light you longed for appears. — Annie Leibovitz

I'm looking for the unexpected. I'm looking for things I've never seen before. — Robert Mapplethorpe

I knew that this couldn't last- that there were people waiting and he had things to do and this couldn't go on forever. But in that moment it was like everything fades away and there was only me and Clark and the possibility of us- whatever we might become- stretching forward in a hundred different directions, all of them unexpected, each one better than the last, the ending not yet written. — Morgan Matson

A moment later the race began - poof - without any fanfare. There was no horn or gun or even a megaphone. But someone at the starting line must have yelled, "Go!" for everyone began running. Some things, even some of the most life-changing experiences, start that way. No one says, "This (fill in the blank) is going to be one of the most radical rites of passage you will ever travel through, so pay attention." Someone just says, "Okay, go ahead now," and you find yourself in the middle of an unexpected lightning storm with your life flashing before you. — Cami Ostman

There's a funny thing I've noticed about life. When you really dread something, it turns out not to be so bad. It's the unexpected awful things that get you down. — Elizabeth Laird

The wonders of a journey consist far more of such intangible experiences and unexpected situations than of factual things and events of material reality. — Anagarika Govinda

Resolution, the ability and determination to see things through to the end. However unexpected or disappointing that end turns out to be. — Peter F. Hamilton

Baba Ayub didn't understand. Just as he didn't understand why a wave of something, something like the tail end of a sad dream, always swept through him whenever he heard the jingling, surprising him each time like an unexpected gust of wind. But then it passed, as all things do. It passed. — Khaled Hosseini

I think I am at the end of a certain phase of my life. What I'm on the lookout for now is the unexpected, for things that come from outside and that I never thought might happen. Sometimes you have to watch for them so you don't automatically say no to the new, simply because you're in the habit of saying no to everything that comes along. — Doris Lessing

But if you stray too far on the side of distance and strictness, you end up hard and unapproachable. So you need to be open to unexpected things and you need to be accessible to those people who are honest and forthright with you, especially if they take risks trying to do what their heart dictates. — Alan McCluskey

You can't prepare for the things that change your life. They come suddenly and unannounced. — Marty Rubin

Nine Principles Never have a wicked heart. Train not by thought, but by practice. Learn a wide variety of arts and skills, and do not fix on only one. Know not only your own techniques but also those of many others. Find out rationally what is an advantage and what is a disadvantage. Foster an intuitive ability to judge all things. Feel an essence that you cannot see on the surface. Pay attention to the very smallest of phenomena. (Everything takes its own course, and sometimes we get unexpected results.) Do nothing in vain, for the energy and time we have is limited. — Kazumi Tabata

What I have learned from the year past is something about miracles
miracles of healing and answered prayer and unexpected happy endings. Each came quietly and simply, on tiptoe, so that I hardly knew it had occurred.
All this makes me realize that miracles are everyday things. Not only the sudden, great good fortune, wafting in on a new wind from the sky. They are almost routine, yet miracles just the same.
Every time something hard becomes easier; every time you adjust to a situation which, last week, you didn't know existed; every time a kindness falls as softly as the dew; or someone you love who was ill grows better; every time a blessing comes, not with trumpet and fanfare, but silently as night, you have witnessed a miracle. — Faith Baldwin

Find comfort in little things and joy in unexpected moments. — Holly Elissa Bruno

One of the most common truths of life is that we all take for granted things that simply are. Whether a spouse, a friend, a family, or a home, after enough time has passed, that person, place, or situation becomes the accepted norm of our lives. It is not until we confront the unexpected, not until the normal is no more, that we truly come to appreciate what once we had. I — R.A. Salvatore

My needlework teacher suffered from a problem of vision. She recognised things according to expectation and environment. If you were in a particular place, you expected to see particular things. Sheep and hills, sea and fish; if there was an elephant in the supermarket, she'd either not see it at all, or call it Mrs. Jones and talk about fishcakes. But most likely, she's do what most people do when confronted with something they don't understand. Panic. — Jeanette Winterson

What does it mean to be a snowboarder? It's about having fun, with your friends or by yourself. It's about pushing yourself to try new things and do the unexpected. Finally, and most importantly, it's about being creative. — Shaun White

When I stand on stage, I get nervous, and because unexpected situations can occur, we need even more preparation. I must have confidence on top of that as well. The reason why I chose drama/theatre as my major is to act after learning all the theory first. You only live once, and I can only live as myself. I think I could learn a lot of things if I can live as others through acting. — Seohyun

We live in a world which in some respects is mysterious; things can be experienced which remain inexplicable; not everything which happens can be anticipated. The unexpected and the incredible belong in this world. Only then is life whole. For me the world has from the beginning been infinite and ungraspable. — Carl Jung

When seasoned by the subtleties of accident, harmony, favor, wisdom, and inevitability, luck takes on the cast of serendipity. Serendipity happens when a well-trained mind looking for one things encounters something else: the unexpected. — Margot Lee Shetterly

I always tell my students, about the biggest baddest things in life you must try to write small and light, save the big writing for the unexpected tiny thing that always makes or breaks a story. — Pam Houston

You have to take risks, he said. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen. Every day, God gives us the sun
and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day, we try to pretend that we haven't perceived that moment, that it doesn't exist
that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment. It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front-door key in the lock; it may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that all seem the same to us. But that moment exists
a moment when all the power of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles. — Paulo Coelho

Being an artist and being a teacher are two conflicting things. When I paint, my work manifests the unexpected ... In teaching it's just the opposite. I must account for every line, shape and colour and I am forced to give an explanation of the inexplicable and account for the variety of styles the students present. — Pierre Alechinsky

God is an ironist. He folds the story up in unexpected ways, tying things together that we could never have imagined. He is the ironist of time, of history, of story. He, in possession of ultimate right-handed power, determined to set it all aside, and overcame evil by taking on an invincible vulnerability, inviting us to learn how to do the same. He is not just strong, but also wise in the authority of humility. And He is love, which means He overflows in sacrificial ways. But His sacrifices are not throwaways, but always come back to Him thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. Love is fruitful, and in imitation of Him we begin to learn that the more we give, the more we have. — Douglas Wilson

I know I made plenty of mistakes in my tenure. But one of the things that you learn is to be very careful and to protect yourself down the road a little bit, which is to say you've got to think ahead and think where is the story going to go? What are all the possible outcomes? And how do I protect the president from unexpected twists and turns in the road? — Dee Dee Myers

My best ideas come to me at unexpected moments, like when I'm reading children's books to my kids (the pictures inspire me), shopping, driving somewhere, seeing different things. — Mary Engelbreit

Filmmaking is, a sort of uncontrolled process. I think it's very important to be open to the unexpected and at the same time, of course, maintain your vision, be open to the all the things you didn't think of yourself that can make the film better. — Dagur Kari

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. - Henry David Thoreau — Bryant McGill

He knew exactly what this was. A severe panic attack. "Princess?" She glanced at him, shook her head and clutched even tighter at herself. "Please, leave me alone. I can't breathe." His heart went out to her and her fear. He closed the distance between them and placed his hands on her arms to help steady her. "Kiara? Hauk wears women's underwear." Kiara froze at his words, not quite sure she'd heard what he said. "Come again?" "Hauk wears women's underwear. Pink and really girly. You know, one of those skimpy things that tucks into the crack of his fat ass." In spite of her terror, she laughed at the image of the huge, fierce Andarion in a tiny pink G-string. "Hauk wears women's underwear?" Nykyrian's grip loosed on her arms. "Better?" Surprisingly enough, she was. Somehow that unexpected image had managed to break through her panic and center her back in the real world. No one had ever been able to do that before. Her — Sherrilyn Kenyon

It's hard to give up that amount of control. It's scary to make yourself that vulnerable. Because you might do all kinds of things that are unplanned or are unexpected that maybe don't work, and you have to trust the director to see that and work around those things. I find it really scary. — Sarah Polley

There was one big rule in life - the things you worried about never happened, and the things that happened were never the ones you expected. Not that this bit of advice helped Johnny much. It simply meant that he spent more time guessing at what the unexpected disasters in his life would be. — John Bellairs

Of course, when you're doing something that's unexpected, people are going to have a very specific point of view about it, but I think it's all good to have a healthy debate about who Hitchcock was and what that means to people. He means a lot of different things to a lot of different people because the films are so great. If the movies were not great, no one would be bothering to show any interest. — Sacha Gervasi

Most things in the world are not unexpected if one thinks carefully about them. Even something one would call unusual- if one things about it, it's really just a thing that was supposed to happen. Encountering unusual events often means you didn't think things through. — Paula McLain

[I]t is useful at times to admit to yourself that you don't know your way and to be open to help from unexpected places. Doing that makes available to you inner and outer energies and allies that arise out of your own soulfulness and selflessness. [...] [G]etting caught up in the normal human tendencies of self-cherishing and arrogance, and ignoring the larger order of things, will ultimately lead to ans impasse in your life in which you are unable to go forward, unable to go back, and unable to turn around. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

You've got to expect things are going to go wrong. And we always need to prepare ourselves for handling the unexpected. — Neil Armstrong

It is quite possible that, even if you set the most relevant, realistic goals, you may not achieve them in the way or the time you wanted to. Life may throw something unexpected in your path, which stops you from achieving what you want, when you want. This is not failure. Feeling like you have failed is bound to lead to low mood, and can often come about if things haven't quite gone according to plan. However, the best thing to do is to draw a mental line under the experience, learn from what has happened and try again. As long as you are still trying, you are working towards your long-term aims; and as long as you are doing that, you are never truly failing. — Anna Barnes

My father was a psycho-analyst and I think that fact was very influential on my development as an artist. Trying to search beneath the surface of things for an unexpected sense of mystery. — Gregory Crewdson

I like doing things that are different, unexpected, and where I feel that either the role feels like a natural fit for me or it's a really big swing that I don't know if I'm going to connect on. — Rob Lowe

As life becomes harder and more threatening, it also becomes richer, because the fewer expectations we have, the more good things of life become unexpected gifts that we accept with gratitude. — Etty Hillesum

To accept the lively, the messy, and the unexpected things in our days, knowing that God sees them and has an eternal perspective, is to say with confidence I receive your timing. — Emily P. Freeman

What I adore is mixing the unexpected, things you don't imagine should go together — Paul Smith

And though many women might enjoy the offering of such compliments, I did not want him to love me based on temporal things like a smile or voice or presence, things that could vanish through mood or an unexpected cloud. He must love me for the sake of love alone ... — Nancy Moser

But this is one of the things that makes rap at its best so human. It doesn't force you to pretend to be only one thing or another, to be a saint or a sinner. It recognizes that you can be true to yourself and still have unexpected dimensions and opposing ideas. Having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other is the most common thing in the world. The real bullshit is when you act like you don't have contradictions inside you, that you're so dull and unimaginative that your mind never changes or wanders into strange, unexpected places. — Jay-Z

She said that it was a mistake to have made as few superficial friends as I have done in my life, and to have concentrated only on the few things I have concentrated on
her, for one. My children, for another. Sportswriting and being an ordinary citizen. This did not leave me well enough armored for the unexpected, was her opinion. She said this was because I didn't know my parents very well, had gone to a military school, and grown up in the south, which was full of betrayers and secret-keepers and untrustworthy people, which I agree is true, though I never knew any of them. — Richard Ford

One of the things I think is unique and signature about Blizzard is that whenever they do their games, and with Warcraft in particular, they take the things they love and put a twist on it. They showed that heroes can come from the most unexpected places, and as a player, you can play as a hero, on all sides. — Duncan Jones

Sometimes life can be unexpected. Sometimes things surprise you and all you can do is roll with the punches or let them beat you to a bloody pulp. -Sage Hannigan, Contingency — P.S. Martinez

RVM Thoughts for Today
Joy and Bliss can come from the little and most unexpected things if only we Program our Mind to enjoy these little things. — R.v.m.

Ancient eyes had stared at me, filled with ancient grief. And something more. Something so alien and unexpected that I'd almost burst into tears. I'd seen many things in his eyes in the time that I'd known him: lust, amusement, sympathy, mockery, caution, fury. But I had never seen this.
Hope. Jericho Barrons had hope, and I was the reason for it.
I would never forget his smile. It had illuminated him from the inside out. — Karen Marie Moning

What if everything you see is more than what you see
the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it is really a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things. — Shigeru Miyamoto

It was more than childish perversity, of course, or the unexpected confidence she had recently acquired, that made her insist; she had indeed noticed that Gregor needed a lot of room to crawl about in, whereas the furniture, as far as anyone could see, was of no use to him at all. Girls of that age, though, do become enthusiastic about things and feel they must get their way whenever they can. Perhaps this was what tempted Grete to make Gregor's situation seem even more shocking than it was so that she could do even more for him. Grete would probably be the only one who would dare enter a room dominated by Gregor crawling about the bare walls by himself. So — Franz Kafka

We must stop regarding unpleasant or unexpected things as interruptions of real life. The truth is that interruptions are real life. — C.S. Lewis

It's not unexpected that shooting massive amounts of water, sand, and chemicals at high pressure into the earth to shatter shale and release natural gas might shake things up. But earthquakes aren't the worst problem with fracking. — David Suzuki

I think no matter who you are, no matter what you do in your life, no matter where you come from, you have to fight; we all fight in different ways. And its a metaphor, sometimes its literal, and I really believe that freedom is on the other side of discipline. Your mind can only match where your body is. And so its...you're never mastering it, there's always a lesson--things catch you in unexpected ways. And I think that's a beautiful metaphor for life. — Jake Gyllenhaal

Things that have never happened before are bound to occur with some regularity. You must always be prepared for the unexpected, including sudden, sharp downward swings in markets and the economy. Whatever adverse scenario you can contemplate, reality can be far worse. — Seth Klarman

It is a place that 'grows upon you' every day. There seems to be always something to find out in it. There are the most extraordinary alleys and by-ways to walk about in. You can lose your way (what a comfort that is, when you are idle!) twenty times a day, if you like; and turn up again, under the most unexpected and surprising difficulties. It abounds in the strangest contrasts; things that are picturesque, ugly, mean, magnificent, delightful, and offensive, break upon the view at every turn. — Charles Dickens

Part of what drives us to explore and discover is the intangible: expanding our horizons, feeding our curiosity, finding all those unexpected things, and trying to answer those profound questions discussed in previous chapters, like how did the universe begin? How did life begin? Are we alone? — Nancy Atkinson

I'm not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy it's Shakespeare
or, if not, it's some equally brainy lad
who says that it's always just when a chappie is feeling particularly top-hole, and more than usually braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with a bit of lead piping. — P.G. Wodehouse

Almost all of your life is lived by the seat of your pants, one unexpected event crashing into another, with no pattern or reason, and then you finally reach a point, around my age, where you spend more time than ever looking back. Why did this happen? Look where that led? You see the shape of things. — Ron Perlman

For me, as a physician, nature's richness is to be studied in the phenomena of health and disease, in endless forms of individual adaptation by which human organisms, people, adapt and reconstruct themselves, faced with the challenges and vicissitudes of life.
Defects, disorders, diseases, in this sense, can play a paradoxical role, by bringing out latent powers, developments, evolutions, forms of life, that might never be seen, or even be imaginable, in their absence. [ ... ] Thus while one may be horrified by the ravages of developmental disorder or disease, one may sometimes see them as creative too - for it they destroy particular paths, particular ways of doing things, they may force the nervous system into making other paths and ways, force on it an unexpected growth and evolution. — Oliver Sacks

Of all the unexpected things in contemporary literature, this is among the oddest: that kids have an inordinate appetite for very long, very tricky, very strange books about places that don't exist. — Adam Gopnik

I have found that fate has a warped tendency to let things simmer down for awhile to lead you to believe everything is all hunky dory. Content on just letting the life altering hurdles lay beneath a seemingly calm surface, luring you blindly into a new chapter of your life with the impression of smooth sailing up ahead only to have the unexpected spring up in front of you. Testing you, to see whether or not you have what it takes to roll with the waves, or sink like a stone beneath the waves. It is up to you to decide to stand back up, brush it off and continue fighting. — Stephanie Mayfield

They had hoped, hated, loved, suffered, sung, and wept. They had known loss. They had surrounded and comforted themselves with objects. They had driven automobiles. They had walked dogs and pushed children on swing sets and waited in line at the grocery store. They had said stupid things. They had kept secrets, nurtured grudges, blown upon the embers of regret. They had worshipped a variety of gods or no god at all. They had awakened in the night to the sound of rain. They had apologized. They had attended various ceremonies. They had explained the history of themselves to psychologists, priests, lovers, and strangers in bars. They had, at unexpected moments, experienced bolts of joy so unalloyed, so untethered to events, that they seemed to come from above; they had longed to be known and, sometimes, almost were. Heirs — Justin Cronin

It is often to the wary that the events in life are unexpected. Looser types-people who are not busy weighing and measuring every little thing-are used to accidents, coincidences, chance, things getting out of hand, things sneaking up on them. They are the happy children of life, to whom life happens for better or worse. — Laurie Colwin

Ed Catmull has thought a lot about the role luck plays at a great company, and how businesspeople manage that luck. It's all in the preparedness, he says, and in creating a culture that can adapt to the unexpected. "These things are always going to happen. What separates you is your response, — Brent Schlender

The essence of the ludicrous consists in surprise,
in unexpected terms of feeling and explosions of thought,
often bringing dissimilar things together with a shock; as when some wit called Boyle, the celebrated philosopher, the father of chemistry and brother of the Earl of Cork. — Edwin Percy Whipple

The question haunted me, and the real answer came, as answers often do, not in the canyon but at an unlikely time and in an unexpected place, flying over the canyon at thirty thousand feet on my way to be a grandmother. My mind on other things, intending only to glance out, the exquisite smallness and delicacy of the river took me completely by surprise. In the hazy light of early morning, the canyon lay shrouded, the river flecked with glints of silver, reduced to a thin line of memory, blurred by a sudden realization that clouded my vision. The astonishing sense of connection with that river and canyon caught me completely unaware, and in a breath I understood the intense, protective loyalty so many people feel for the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. It has to do with truth and beauty and love of this earth, the artifacts of a lifetime and the descant of a canyon wren at dawn. — Ann Zwinger

On a live-action movie, things happen that are unexpected. In animation, you have to fabricate the feeling. That takes a tremendous amount of nuance until the film becomes sentient and gives back. — Gore Verbinski

Take joy in your digressions. Because that is where the unexpected arises. That is the experimental aspect. If you know where you will end up when you begin, nothing has happened in the meantime. You have to be willing to surprise yourself writing things you didn't think you thought. Letting examples burgeon requires using inattention as a writing tool. You have to let yourself get so caught up in the flow of your writing that it ceases at moments to be recognizable to you as your own. This means you have to be prepared for failure. For with inattention comes risk: of silliness or even outbreaks of stupidity. But perhaps in order to write experimentally, you have to be willing to 'affirm' even your own stupidity. Embracing one's own stupidity is not the prevailing academic posture (at least not in the way I mean it here). — Brian Massumi

The actors have confidence in me to let me lead them to unexpected things. — Christophe Honore

Creativity is paradoxical. To create, a person must have knowledge but forget the knowledge, must see unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder, must work hard but spend time doing nothing as information incubates, must create many ideas yet most of them are useless, must look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different, must desire success but embrace failure, must be persistent but not stubborn, and must listen to experts but know how to disregard them.
[Twelve Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creative Thinking (The Creativity Post, December 6, 2011)] — Michael Michalko

I miss the girl I was, and I wish I could tell her that. But she got hurt really bad and I've been waiting such a long time for her to be okay again. I bet she never dreamed she would live so long, or do the things she can do now. I wish I could tell her what she'd grow up to be, how strange and beautiful and unexpected she'd be. She'd probably feel a lot better if she knew. The sky and the stars are brilliant, and I think of how much she would have loved this. — Austin Grossman

There is an irreducible scandal, something traumatic and unexpected, in the encounter with another subject, in the fact that the subject (a self-consciousness) encounters outside itself, in front of it, another living being there in the world, among things, which also claims to be a subject (a self-consciousness). As a subject, I am by definition alone, a singularity opposed to the entire world of things, a punctuality to which all the world appears, and all the phenomenological descriptions of my being always "together-with" others cannot ultimately cover up the scandal of there being another such singularity. In the guise of a living being in front of me which also claims to be a self-consciousness, infinity assumes a determinate form"- Hegel, — Slavoj Zizek