Quotes About Surprise

To admit that species generally become rare before they become extinct—to feel no surprise at the comparative rarity of one species with another, and yet to call in some extraordinary agent and to marvel greatly when a species ceases to exist, appears to me much the same as to admit that sickness in the individual is the prelude to death—to feel no surprise at sickness—but when the sick man dies to wonder, and to believe that he died through violence.

He who believes that each being has been created as we now see it, must occasionally have felt surprise when he has met with an animal having habits and structure not at all in agreement.

Attention, if sudden and close, graduates into surprise; and this into astonishment; and this into stupefied amazement.

You never know when somebody will pull you to them.

To him, the world had no order of succession, no causation, no precedent. Everything he saw was new-minted, and thus every day was a parade of wonders.

but maybe life is like that - you never know when something that's been hidden is going to rise up and bite you, or glow with a golden hue.

That is the way God works. Without even a hint of warning, He speaks to ordinary people, on ordinary days.

Information is that which defies expectation.

Nobody ever imagined a bunch of Orcs would steal a database table…

but he understands she's twenty now (how did that happen?)

He stabs at the mouse mat with one finger and I wince, but instead of fat purple sparks and a hideous soul-sucking manifestation, it simply wakes up his Windows box. (Not that there's much difference.)

Georgina darts forward, grabs my hand, and pumps it up and down while peering at my face as if she's wondering why water isn't gushing from my mouth.

Then the screen comes on, showing a familiar menu on a blue background and I stare at it, transfixed, like a yokel who's never seen a television before. Because it's not a TV. It's a flat-screen PC running Windows XP Media Center Edition. They can't be that dumb. It's got to be a trap, I gibber to myself. Not even the clueless cannon-fodder-in-jumpsuits who staff any one of the movies on the shelf would be that dumb!

It's a bit like cricket," Pete agrees. "Weeks of endless boredom interspersed with the occasional moment of existential terror.

Imp froze as he rounded the corner onto Regent Street, and saw four elven warriors shackling a Santa to a stainless-steel cross outside Hamleys Toy Shop.

Dear God," whispers Pete, "it's full of posters!

One moment you're cruising along effortlessly at thirty thousand feet while the cabin crew slosh the whisky around in business class, the next you're in a screaming death-spiral with flames pouring from the hole where the starboard engine was meant to be before some toe-cheese puked a missile up its exhaust. It takes a little time to switch mode from business-as-usual to six-alarms-emergency if you're not primed to expect it

Startled, she reached into the bag again. Another fortune cookie, another message: I MADE A BANDAGE BUT YOU EATED IT.

mother's eyes widen

it's like being attacked by a RAT!

Seeing your mother naked is not something you easily recover from. Seeing your mother naked and jumping from one side of a king-sized bed to the other with a nurse's hat on while your father, who is also naked, is chasing her with a bandanna around his neck, is reason to put yourself up for adoption.

Tally yanked her hand away and stuck it behind her back. God. I am so sorry. She'd touched him. Felt the heat of his tanned skin, felt the crisp hairs at his groin...felt...oh, man. Nice try, but no cigar. Want to go for two out of three? Tally closed her eyes and blew out a breath. Oh, this day just gets better and better. It's certainly looking up for me. With an amused glance, the pirate hitched his shorts back over the sharp angle of his hipbones. There'd been so sign of a tan line.

How can such scary looking parents create something so cute?

It always surprised him when he thought of it later that he did not sink under the load of despair.