They say that every snowflake is different. If that were true, how could the world go on? How could we ever get up off our knees? How could we ever recover from the wonder of it?
—Jeanette Winterson
If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.
—Thomas A. Edison
Sometimes our biggest mistakes give us our greatest reward.
—Kristin Billerbeck in A Girl’s Best Friend
Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that happen to a man.
—Leon Trotsky
When science finally locates the center of the universe, some people will be surprised to learn they're not it.
—Bernard Bailey
It is not the conscious changes made in their lives by men and women—a new job, a new town, a divorce—which really shape them, like the chapter headings in a biography, but a long, slow mutation of emotion, hidden, all-penetrative; something by which they may be so taken up that the practical outward changes of their lives in the world, noted with surprise, scandal, or envy by others, pass almost unnoticed by themselves.
—Nadine Gordimer
I'm not saying it's going to be easy. Nothing in life is easy. But that's no reason to give up. You'll be surprised what you can accomplish if you set your mind to it. After all, you only have one life, so you should try to make the most of it.
—Louis Sachar in Holes
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
—Mark Twain
The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us.
—Ashley Montagu
The things that go wrong often make the best memories.
—Gretchen Rubin in The Happiness Project
Death can sneak up on you like a silent kitten, surprising you with it's touch and you have a right to act surprised. Other times death stomps in the front door, unwanted and unannounced, and makes it's noisy way to your seat on the sofa.
—Hugh Elliott
You're immature. You've been unable to adjust to the idea of war."
"Yes, sir."
"You have a morbid aversion to dying. You probably resent the fact that you're at war and might get your head blown off any second."
"I more than resent it, sir. I'm absolutely incensed."
"… Misery depresses you. Ignorance depresses you. Persecution depresses you. Violence depresses you.… You know, it wouldn't surprise me if you're a manic depressive!
—Joseph Heller
There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved: It is God's finger on man's shoulder.
—Charles Morgan
The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.
—Carl von Clausewitz
The liveliness of literature lies in its exceptionality, in being the individual, idiosyncratic vision of one human being, in which, to our delight and great surprise, we may find our own vision reflected.
—Salman Rushdie