Quotes About Expectation

Before we mire up too deep in the accusatory voice it might be well to remind ourselves that you can't misrepresent what has yet to occur.

You always did think the worst. And was seldom disappointed.

So it's happened, I kept thinking, you're in the middle of a story exactly as you've always wanted, and it's horrible. Fear tastes quite different when you're not just reading about it, Meggie, and playing hero wasn't half as much fun as I'd expected.

You can't expect the wolf to turn vegetarian because of one Pup.

Well what does it matter,' he muttered when he was out in the corridor. 'Who wants to know the end of a story in advance?

It was like a promise that wishes could come true, that desire might lead to more than yearning.

Jedes Buch sollte mit so einem Papier beginnen (...) Am Besten mit einem dunklen: dunkelrot, dunkelblau, je nachdem, wie der Einband des Buches ist. Wenn du dann das Buch aufschlägst, ist es wie im Theater: Erst ist da der vorhang - du ziehst ihn zur Seite, und die Vorstellung beginnt.

Only to be expected!' Elinor's voice almost cracked. Belligerent as a Bull Terrier, she marched up to him.

Of course, the marvels you hoped to find might not be waiting inside the covers, so then you closed the book, sorry that its promise had not been kept. But Inkheart was not a book of that

As I never saw my father or my mother … my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father's gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription "Also Georgiana Wife of the Above" I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

There was a space in the conversation here where Salima would say something positive. Everyone in the room wanted her to say something positive. The conversation had a shape, or maybe a direction, and she could pat it on the back, give it a little push in that direction, and the next stop would be something glad from Paul or Wye or the white guy, and then back to her, push and push and push, until it had picked up enough velocity that no one could stop it.

Most people who hope have their hopes dashed. That's realism, but everyone whose hopes weren't dashed started off by having hope. Hope's the price of admission.

What they are is hopeful.

and had occasion to think on the Italian proverb, " To wait for one who does not come; to lye a bed not able to sleep; and to find it impossible to please those whom we serve; are three griefs enough to kill a man.

The people who were least expected to worship the Christ-child come to do so, while those who should have been awaiting him are threatened by his arrival.

Tomorrow. There was something hopeful, even about the word.

after Alvin we would be on board the other boat by now … Didn't

She opened her mouth but did not immediately speak, and I felt, simultaneously, the impulse to coax the words from her and the impulse to suppress them. I always thought I wanted to know a secret, or I wanted an event to unfold – I wanted my life to start – but in those rare moments when it seemed like something might actually change, panic shot through me.

Being called baby: like safaris and bowling leagues, a phenomenon she never thought she'd experience first hand.

Something inside me clenched. So often, people let you down; so often, situations turn out disappointingly. But occasionally someone recognizes, acknowledges, your private and truest self.

By the time we met up again, she'd be able to hand her reaction to me as a tidy package: a single square of lasagna in a sealed Tupperware container as opposed to a squalid kitchen with tomato sauce splattered on the counters. And I wouldn't have to be there while she got it in order.

Only part you have to apologize for is getting me all horned up and then passing out, but I'll take a rain check

In my expectation that good fortune will lead inextricably to its reversal, I should note that I don't think I'm less deserving of happiness than anyone else; it is that in an unequal world, nobody deserves the privileges I enjoy.

Jane resembled nothing so much as a pregnant angel. She