Quotes About Surprise

The biggest surprise about our marriage is that Erin was out there.

A critic is a man who expects miracles.

a bullock, backing in alarm from the halter, crashed its craggy behind into my midriff. The wind shot out of me in a sharp hiccup, then the animal decided to turn round in the narrow passage, squashing me like a fly against the railings. I was pop-eyed as it scrambled round; I wondered whether the creaking was coming from my ribs or the wood behind me.

It doesn't matter how many times I've been called a name, it still hurts - and it still always comes as such a surprise that I never know how to respond. Or maybe I do, but I'm afraid.

Be not surprised if thou findest thyself in possession of unexpected wealth. Allah will provide an unexpected use for it.

A fart in the face is love.

The whole Haley-Nathan marriage deal was a pretty good twist huh? I hope we got all of you with it. That particular story line even suprised me when I read it, it's a good one and it'll provide for some good stories to come.

Then he said the most extraordinary thing." "What?" "He said,'I've got a nice big juicy sausage for you.' Just like that." "Ah. The direct approach.

The padlock popped open and I almost FAINTED. 11

It's funny the way things work out. You go in search of one thing and end up finding something else. If I didn't know better, I'd think it was the Force at work." -Han Solo

But it was true. I was constantly surprised how the storied names of biblical locales popped up in the most familiar of circumstances: on a simple map, on a graffitied street sign, or in everyday conversations. "The traffic to Bethlehem was terrible last night!" said a Jesuit over dinner one night. Which still didn't beat "Gehenna is lovely.

Because culture as such can have no temporal limits, a culture understands its past not as destiny, but as history, that is, as a narrative that has begun but points always toward the endlessly open. Culture is an enterprise of mortals, disdaining to protect themselves against surprise. Living in the strength of their vision, they eschew power and make joyous play of boundaries.

It is the desire of all finite players to be Master Players, to be so perfectly skilled in their play that nothing can surprise them, so perfectly trained that every move in the game is foreseen at the beginning.

Infinite players, on the other hand, continue their play in the expectation of being surprised. If surprise is no longer possible, all play ceases.

Surprise causes finite play to end; it is the reason for infinite play to continue.

Artists cannot be trained. One does not become an artist by acquiring certain skills or techniques, though one can use any number of skills and techniques in artistic activity. The creative is found in anyone who is prepared for surprise. Such a person cannot go to school to be an artist, but can only go to school as an artist.

Properly speaking, life and death as such are rarely the stakes of a finite game. What one wins is a title; and when the loser of a finite game is declared dead to further play, it is equivalent to declaring that person utterly without title-a person to whom no attention whatsoever need be given. Death, in finite play, is the triumph of the past over the future, a condition in which no surprise is possible.

Where the finite player plays for immortality, the infinite player plays as a mortal. In infinite play one chooses to be mortal inasmuch as one always plays dramatically, that is, toward the open, toward the horizon, toward surprise, where nothing can be scripted. It is a kind of play that requires complete vulnerability. To the degree that one is protected against the future, one has established a boundary and no longer plays with but against others.

To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated. Education discovers an increasing richness in the past, because it sees what is unfinished there. Training regards the past as finished and the future as to be finished. Education leads toward a continuing self-discovery; training leads toward a final self-definition. Training repeats a completed past in the future. Education continues an unfinished past into the future.

Surprise in infinite play is the triumph of the future over the past. Since infinite players do not regard the past as having an outcome, they have no way of knowing what has been begun there. With each surprise, the past reveals a new beginning in itself. Inasmuch as the future is always surprising, the past is always changing.

To be playful is not to be trivial or frivolous, or to act as though nothing of consequence will happen. On the contrary, when we are playful with each other we relate as free persons, and the relationship is open to surprise; everything that happens is of consequence. It is, in fact, seriousness that closes itself to consequence, for seriousness is a dread of the unpredictable outcome of open possibility.

Artists cannot be trained. One does not become an artist by acquiring certain skills or techniques, though one can use any number of skills and techniques in artistic activity. The creative is found in anyone who is prepared for surprise. Such a person cannot go to school to be an artist, but can only go to school as an artist. Therefore

To be playful is not to be trivial or frivolous, or to act as though nothing of consequence will happen. On the contrary, when we are playful with each other we relate as free persons, and the relationship is open to surprise: *everything* that happens is of consequence, for seriousness is a dread of the unpredictable outcome of open possibility. To be serious is to press for a specified conclusion. To be playful is to allow for possibility whatever the cost to oneself.

What is your future, and mine, becomes ours. We prepare each other for surprise.