Quotes About Surprise

Throughout the meal Lucy would grin with the knowledge of her secret, and I would ask, "What?" and she would say, "You'll see." Then everyone stopped looking at Johnny Depp and turned toward the door. Lucy grinned wider, and I looked, too. Joe came over, gliding across the floor as the room parted for him. Tall men in sleeveless sweatshirts and dark glasses and brilliant red tattoos tend to stand out in Spago. Even Johnny Depp was looking.

Button's face was blank as Pike approached, but a deep line cut Futardo's brow. Pike wondered what she was thinking. Button's jacket was already off in anticipation of the coming heat, and his hands were in his pockets. He didn't take them out to shake. Instead, he nodded toward the canal. "There you go." Pike looked, and in that moment he realized all his assumptions were wrong.

Hess said, "What the fuck?" I said, "Temperamental." SACs aren't used to being cut off. I touched her arm. "We

Fifteen minutes later I parked behind Teri Haines's Saturn and went to the door. I kind of expected to find the house in smoking ruins, but I guess Charles had passed out from overeating. Lighten up, Cole. He's only a kid. Sure. They probably said that when Attila was a kid, too.

Another man came in behind Jonathan. He was a little shorter than me, but his arms were as long as backhoe shovels and his shoulders so wide they looked like they had been built of steel frame girders. The arms and the shoulders didn't go with the rest of him, as if they had once belonged to King Kong or Mighty Joe Young or some other large mammal, and now this guy was using them. He was carrying a manila envelope.

Pike said, "What's wrong?" "His name isn't Haines. It's Hewitt, and he isn't just your ordinary junkie. He's on the run from the Russian mob, he used to be in the federal witness protection program, and he doesn't have a clue that he or those children are in danger." Pike nodded. "So where's the surprise?" You never know if he means it.

He reached from the ceiling with a rubber arm, Krista threw up her hands to ward him off, and Jack came out of nowhere. He flew over her and slammed into Medina like a mongrel dog. Jack's impact knocked Medina backward. They spun through the kitchen, wrapped together, all arms and legs. Jack made grunting sounds, and found her eyes briefly as he spiraled past. "Garage.

Bud Orso was in his early forties, with a chubby scoutmaster's face topped by a crown of short black hair. He was waiting when Scott stepped off the elevator, which Scott had not expected. "Bud

It's just that sometimes things that you don't think are important turn out to be.

The surprise was worse that the pain. It showed a lack of awareness.

I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.

Until you have experienced raccoons mating underneath your bedroom at three in the morning, you have missed one of life's sensational moments.

In that moment of educational ennui, a freshman girl says, "I can bring a human brain to school if you want–my father has lots of them." (Talk about a full-scale class alert: She's going to do WHAT?!")

Surprise is at the core of existence. It's true. You never ever really know what's coming next.

Be like vapor. Do not give your opponents anything solid to attack; watch as they exhaust themselves pursuing you, trying to cope with your elusiveness. Only formlessness allows you to truly surprise your enemies — by the time they figure out where you are and what you are up to, it is too late.

Always try to lower the other side's sense of urgency. Make your enemies think they have all the time in the world; when you suddenly appear at their border, they are in a slumbering state, and you will easily overrun them. While you are sharpening your fighting spirit, always do what you can to blunt theirs. PART

This mental habit offers excellent ground for deception, using a strategy that Machiavelli calls "acclimatization"—deliberately creating some pattern to make your enemies believe that your next action will follow true to form. Having lulled them into complacency, you now have room to work against their expectations, break the pattern, and take them by surprise.

Acting with speed and decisiveness will garner you respect, awe, and irresistible momentum. War is such that the supreme consideration is speed. This is to take advantage of what is beyond the reach of the enemy, to go by way of routes where he least expects you, and to attack where he has made no preparations. SUN-TZU, FOURTH CENTURY B.C.

and a barge that sailed into the banqueting-hall with his week's washing, just as he was giving a dinner-party; and he was

But chance runs like a river through all our lives, and being prepared for surprise is the best we can do.

If you were closer, I'd slap you, she said. Let me help, I replied, and stepped closer. She promptly slapped me, which surprised me only a little. We glared at each other in the near dark, and then she looked away. I'm sorry I slapped you, she said. That's all right. I quite enjoyed it.

the vague thought passed through my mind that all of us, probably, would die like that: unexpectedly, in the middle of something we wanted to do, instead of at the end of our endeavors, as we always fondly believe.

Far off we heard the clatter of hoofs. Arnold went to the window. "Ho!" he said. "Here's a friend of yours with

It was surprising to him, how quickly she could fall asleep.