Quotes About Surprise

I homogenize saw you on the street last night")

What I Found in My Desk A ripe peach with an ugly bruise, a pair of stinky tennis shoes, a day-old ham-and-cheese on rye, a swimsuit that I left to dry, a pencil that glows in the dark, some bubble gum found in the park, a paper bag with cookie crumbs, an old kazoo that barely hums, a spelling test I almost failed, a letter that I should have mailed, and one more thing, I must confess, a note from teacher: Clean This Mess!!!!

I went back on a daily basis until I saw IT. The album cover, the greatest album cover of all time (tied with Highway 61 Revisited). All it said was Meet the Beatles. That was exactly what I wanted to do. Those four half-shadowed faces, rock 'n' roll's Mount Rushmore, and . . . THE HAIR . . . THE HAIR. What did it mean? It was a surprise, a shock. You couldn't see them on the radio. It is almost impossible to explain today the effect of . . . THE HAIR.

The thrill of the uncanny lies in the piquancy of oxymoron.

Hands up! Hands up! Everybody on the floor!" The effect was akin to three wild-eyed berserkers storming a prayer meeting.

In the winter, strangers are often shocked to see me wearing shorts.

Mona leaned over and picked it up. Inside were hairy spiders. She shook the bottle. No, it was empty.

It's amazing how things could change so quickly, in the blink of an eye. Maybe more miracles awaited on the horizon.

I need some kind of... like... last minute, poorly-set-up deus ex machina!!

Hoke stared. Hoke said, "Gulp.

One time when somebody showed up in a wedding dress, but I never knew if it was a joke, or she was serious. She asked me to marry her. She was serious. It was pretty funny.

Q: How do you tell when there's an elephant in the pit? A: Peanut shells on the floor.

He has not observed on the nature of vanity who does not know that it is omnivorous--that it has no choice in its food--that it is fond to talk even of its own faults and vices, as what will excite surprise and draw attention, and what will pass at worst for openness and candor.

Flushed with the explosive shit of a sumo wrestler who ate Mexican food.

The surprising thing, Khalil thought, is that they've changed the vessels that they speak through but they haven't turned up their noses at speaking completely, they long for it, they feel nostalgia for their past which, by necessity, is an innocent past.

That's the detail of the dead woman I always remember: her bare left foot, along with packets of Top Ramen and a torn box of cat food strewn about as plastic bags danced in the wind of passing cars. I always think how, when she left the house that day, the last thing on that woman's mind must have been the possibility of dying on the pavement with dried noodles crowning her head. Maybe if she had paid more attention to detail, like the oncoming car, she would have made it home to feed her cat.

But things never go according to plan. In fact, I think if you're really attached to controlling your future, you should plan for the opposite of what you want just to confuse the cosmic comedians whose sole job is to figure out what you think your future should hold so they can preclude it from ever happening.

all good stories must have religion, royalty, sex, and mystery. She figured she'd have a good two hours to read her Harlequin, said my grandmother. Well, little Suzy walked up to her desk one minute later, said she was finished, and handed her the paper. 'That's impossible,' said the teacher, who looked down and read the story: 'My god, said the Princess, I'm pregnant, whodunit?

Customers at a marathon do not have to be prepared for their excitement. When anything happens they get excited all at once. In that respect a marathon dance is like a bullfight.

Everything in history, once it has happened, looks as if it had to happen exactly that way. We can't imagine any other. But I am convinced of the uncertainty of history, of the possibility of surprise, of the importance of human action in changing what looks unchangeable.

To recall this is to remind people of what the Establishment would like them to forget—the enormous capacity of apparently helpless people to resist, of apparently contented people to demand change. To uncover such history is to find a powerful human impulse to assert one's humanity. It is to hold out, even in times of deep pessimism, the possibility of surprise.

After a quarter of a mile, Luis Cuenca, a young Galician socialist sitting beside the politician, shot him in the back of his neck. Neither Condés nor anyone else had expected this dénouement.

Poor bastard. Wait 'till he sees the bats.

The car suddenly veered off the road and we came to a sliding halt in the gravel. I was hurled against the dashboard. My attorney was slumped over the wheel. "What's wrong?" I yelled. "We can't stop here. This is bat country!