Quotes About Surprise

Well, well," Miller said. "Look who it is." He pulled me up and slammed my back into the wall. Then he got right up in my face. I could see the Cheetos in his teeth.

Zig when the world expects you to zag

If you had told me many years ago that I'd have been headlining Longitude, or festivals like it, I would have thought it was unimaginable.

At heart, I would have to say I'm a pantser. I fully embrace the chaos of letting the unintended happen, on life and on the page.

Being a unique superpower undermines the military intelligence of strategy. To think strategically, one has to imagine oneself in the enemy's place. If one cannot do this, it is impossible to foresee, to take by surprise, to outflank. Misinterpreting an enemy can lead to defeat. This is how empires fall.

It's a fine line to find that balance: to show people enough to give them the promise of something unique, and something they want to see, but at the same time make sure that when they show up for the movie, they're surprised by what they eventually get.

'The Good Soldier' is an odd and maybe even unique book. That it is a masterpiece, almost a perfect novel, comes as a repeated surprise even to readers who have read it before.

If you had asked me when I was in law school or in college or as a kid, 'Is Daniel going to be running a food company?' I would tell you you're cuckoo. What I was going to be doing was representing Israel at the United Nations.

It may surprise people to know that I advocate the reform of the United Nations, not its abolishment.

'American Honey' takes you into the feelings of a girl travelling through the United States while giddily in love. You see modern America through her intense feelings. But again and again the film pulls the rug out from under your feet - scenes never play out as you expect.

Every day is a surprise. There are confirmations of an interconnectivity and synchronicity which inspire, titillate and confirm the inherent comedy of the universe.

The original project began because we know the universe is expanding. Everybody had assumed that gravity would slow down the expansion of the universe and everything would come to a halt and collapse. The big surprise was it was actually speeding up.

We have a picture for how complexity arises, because if the universe is computationally capable, maybe we shouldn't be so surprised that things are so entirely out of control.

I was going to go to a four-year college and be an anthropologist or to an art school and be an illustrator when a friend convinced me to learn photography at the University of Southern California. Little did I know it was a school that taught you how to make movies! It had never occurred to me that I'd ever have any interest in filmmaking.

I do like the idea that tomorrow I might find out that I'm going to be doing something that is completely unknowable today. I think it forces you to live in the moment in a very good way.

There is no such thing as an average person. They really are guidelines for people to grapple with the unknown, and we can always surprise expectations.

If you say to people, 'I'm off to Papa New Guinea,' you'll often get a bad reaction - usually from people who've never been there. There's this fear of the unknown. And 99% of the time, you end up surprised - it rekindles your faith in humanity.

The unknown is very appealing to me. I like to be surprised. I love the idea I might know less at the end of reading something than I do at the beginning.

Instead of fearing the unknown - all the bad that can happen - realize that good things can surprise you as well.

There's always the risk that there are unknown unknowns.

I like the unknown. That's what Terry Malick has always really liked. He's always looking for the unexpected.

'SNL' is all about discovering the unknown, the unexpected.

We were unknown before, and that was an advantage. Nobody knew who we were, so we snuck up on the competition.

Happiness isn't happiness unless there's a violin-playing goat.