121 Surprise Quotes

Feedback is a pleasant thing. I get a lot of letters from unexpected people in unexpected places.

It's bad to wake up and see a large cat in mid-leap from the rough vicinity of the ceiling.

If you're trying to take a roomful of people by surprise, it's a lot easier to hit your targets if you don't yell going through the door.

I had some good opportunities. I was lucky to have had the chance to do things differently. Architecture is about surprise.

Merriment is always the effect of a sudden impression. The jest which is expected is already destroyed.

'One of the advantages of being disorganized is that one is always having surprising discoveries.'

Look how often the unexpected happens -- yet we still never expect it.

Not by appointment do we meet delight or joy; They heed not our expectancy; But round some corner of the streets of life they of a sudden greet us with a smile.

A story to me means a plot where there is some surprise: Because that is how life is - full of surprises.

I was surprised when shortly after New Year's Day of 1983, the Governor of Texas summoned me to his office, because I hadn't been aware that he knew I was in town.

Whoever can surprise well must Conquer.

It seemed incredible to me that day without premonitions or symbols should be the one of my inexorable death.

It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him.

Genuinely good remarks surprise their author as well as his audience.

Surprise becomes effective when we suddenly face the enemy at one point with far more troops than he expected. This type of numerical superiority is quite distinct from numerical superiority in general: it is the most powerful medium in the art of war.

Love withers with predictability; its very essence is surprise and amazement. To make love a prisoner of the mundane is to take its passion and lose it forever.

'It's a bizarre but wonderful feeling, to arrive dead center of a target you didn't even know you were aiming for.'

Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.

Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible; and when you strike and overcome him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow; for an army routed, if hotly pursued, becomes panic-stricken, and can then be destroyed by half their number. The other rule is, never fight against heavy odds, if by any possible maneuvering you can hurl your own force on only a part, and that the weakest part, of your enemy and crush it. Such tactics will win every time, and a small army may thus destroy a large one in detail, and repeated victory will make it invincible.

Fate steals along with silent tread, Found oftenest in what least we dread, Frowns in the storm with angry brow, But in the sunshine strikes the blow.

My whole life has largely been one of surprises. I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant, unexpected encouragements of this kind if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day of his life - that is, tries to make each day reach as nearly as possible the high-water mark of pure, unselfish, useful living.

A story to me means a plot where there is some surprise. Because that is how life is-full of surprises.

History is merely a list of surprises. ... It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again. Please write that down.

If anything is a surprise then there is not much difference between older and younger because the only thing that does make anybody older is that they cannot be surprised. ~ Ch. 2

I said to the bartender 'Surprise me.' He pulled out a naked picture of my wife.

You never cease to amaze me, the way you turn people into plasma

'That's the thing about L.A.- you can freeze to death under a rosebush,' Richard says. [1].

That's an interesting texture. IT'S ALIVE!

on the possibility of someone using the ice cream machine during Battle Asparagus: It could happen, keep an eye open for that. We've got new rules around here, we're gonna scream bloody murder when we see that come on.. [later, as the ice cream machine is turned on by Morimoto's sous chef] ICE CREAM MACHIIIIINE! It's on, the ice cream machine is on.. oh, the mother of all that is holy. The ice cream machine is on here in Kitchen Stadium! It's always a comfort to see either fish or vegetables go into the ice cream machine.. and all I can say is, the judges are in for a surprise!

I didn't think they airbrushed anything that much any more! (in Cincinnati, on 3/3/07, re: Rachel Ray on a box of Triscuits)

Il n'est pas de plaisir plus doux que de surprendre un homme en lui donnant plus qu'il n'espere.

One day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand.

What is this, Vassar?!

Are you kidding me!

Holy Shamoley ...

'Oh my goodness!'

'Un-belIEVABLE!!'

Better than a play!

Sweet Christ on a sled!

Most creativity is a transition from one context into another where things are more surprising. There's an element of surprise, and especially in science, there is often laughter that goes along with the 'Aha.' Art also has this element. Our job is to remind us that there are more contexts than the one that we're in-the one that we think is reality.

To surprise the enemy is to defeat him.

I must be permitted to say that I have been almost overwhelmed by the announcement of the sad event which has so recently occurred. I feel incompetent to perform duties so important and responsible as those which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me.

'En ollut naitakaan pyytanyt ja ne tulivat minulle yllatyksena.' ('I hadn't requested these, and they came as a surprise to me.')

What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens.

A dark horse, which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grandstand in sweeping triumph.

'No, we're not [lettuce], honestly we're not,' said Polly hastily. 'We're not at all nice to eat.' - 'There!' said the Mole. 'They can talk. Who ever heard of a talking lettuce?' (ch. 10)

We looked! Then we saw him Step in on the mat! We looked! And we saw him! The Cat in the Hat!

'What? : The Carthaginians are attacking? God, I knew they'd do that. What? : They are attacking over the Alps? Damn, I knew they'd do that. What? : They're coming on Elephants? : Where'd they get the Elephants? There aren't any Elephants in Europe. This I got to see : are you sure? : It's not just a typo mistake? Perhaps the Carthaginians are attacking over the alps and they are in their element? Kind of upbeat, you know. They're coming on fucking elephants, huh.'

I was walking down the street, something caught my eye... and dragged it fifteen feet.

Don't forget, you men don't know that I'm here. No mention of that fact is to be made in any letters. The world is not supposed to know what the hell happened to me. I'm not supposed to be commanding this Army. I'm not even supposed to be here in England. Let the first bastards to find out be the Goddamned Germans. Some day I want to see them raise up on their piss-soaked hind legs and howl, 'Jesus Christ, it's the Goddamned Third Army again and that son-of-a-fucking-bitch Patton'.

It was as if, at moments, we were perpetually coming into sight of subjects before which we must stop short, turning suddenly out of alleys that we perceived to be blind, closing with a little bang that made us look at each other - for, like all bangs, it was something louder than we had intended- the doors we had indiscreetly opened.

Rochester: Yes, that's the spot all right. You almost had a heart attack when they laughed at Bob Hope.

Surprizes are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.

Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.

Even the Russians are fighting us. They've brought in Jewish pilots, nurses, and doctors. Everybody's ganging up on us. We didn't think it would happen this way.

Dorothy looked, and gave a little cry of fright. There, indeed, just under the corner of the great beam the house rested on, two feet were sticking out, shod in silver shoes with pointed toes.

I accept I might be defeated, but caught in surprise, never.

No proceeding is better than that which you have concealed from the enemy until the time you have executed it. To know how to recognize an opportunity in war, and take it, benefits you more than anything else. Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many. Discipline in war counts more than fury.

The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it.

An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant as the case may be.

I can't believe I'm still here, I know I should be dead.

At this moment, the laurel bush, which had hitherto not spoken, said 'Psst!'

His whole aspect was that of a man who has unexpectedly been struck by lightning.

I started violently, as if some unseen hand had goosed me.

Wonder is from surprise, and surprise stops with experience.

We caught a lot of people off guard, which is cool. And I think we made things more enjoyable for the boyfriends who had been dragged to the concert.

Jordy Verrill: [upon first viewing the meteor] Whoo! I be dipped in hogshit if that ain't a meteor!

Who is this that comes in grandeur, coming from the blazing East? This is he we had not thought of, this is he the airy Christ.

Drama assumes an order. If only so that it might have - by disrupting that order - a way of surprising.

Oh Snap!

There was one especially memorable moment . . . when Jack began a very difficult passage from Mendelssohn's Concerto, everyone in the orchestra turned and looked at Jack in wonder and amazement . . . they were playing Beethoven's Fifth at the time! ~ Zubin Mehta

...his head emerged cautiously, like a snail taking a look around after a thunderstorm.

That tears it!

Hot Ziggety!