Top 100 No Surprise Quotes
#1. Robert Frost said, No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.
Kim Addonizio
#2. Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture, ... When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.
Rick Santorum
#3. What are you?" Lady Marsden asked, not bothering to hide her surprise. Obviously the lady was not accustomed to being caught snooping, let alone shut down twice.
"I have no idea,
Kady Cross
#4. Bob Marley performed the 'One Love Peace' concert in Jamaica with the two different warring political sides. There's always been that in black music and culture in general. It's no surprise because black music is such a reflection of what's going on in black life. It's not unusual for hip-hop.
Mos Def
#5. It's wherever you are. If it's tapped into any of your senses, it knows where you are and what you're doing."
Oh no, I thought, my spirits sinking. I hadn't considered that. Did that mean nothing I did was ever anymore?
"Even in the bathroom?" the Gasman's eyes widened with surprise.
James Patterson
#6. No race has the last word on culture and on civilization. You do not know what the black man is capable of; you do not know what he is thinking and therefore you do not know what the oppressed and suppressed Negro, by virtue of his condition and circumstance, may give to the world as a surprise.
Marcus Garvey
#7. It's no surprise that the Bush administration's bullying swagger and blithe ignorance have caused much of the Muslim world to hold the U.S. in rock-bottom regard.
Graydon Carter
#8. Solitude is an unmarked place beyond the borders of the map, a place where most fear to tread. It's no surprise, then, that this is where the greatest secrets and most valuable treasures are hidden.
Cristen Rodgers
#9. Because from what I've seen of marriages and relationships, there aren't any rules. You deal with what comes, like anything else in life. There's no template. No freaking outline. And that's what makes relationships interesting, right? The element of surprise.
Kristin Walker
#10. There is no perception without memory. But good art surprise us. Good art reorients our expectations, forces us to break the pattern, to see in a new way.
Siri Hustvedt
#11. Often, superstition and injustice are imposed by the same ecclesiastical and secular authorities, working hand in glove. It is no surprise that political revolutions, scepticism about religion, and the rise of science might go together,
Carl Sagan
#12. It's no surprise that optimistic athletes, managers and teams do better. What's interesting is where they do better. It's in coming back from defeat and acting in the clutch.
Martin Seligman
#13. When demand is being destroyed by expensive oil just as expensive oil is incentivising increased production - it should come as no surprise that at some point the markets would react.
Samuel Alexander
#14. Sara: "You are so brave," I tell her, and then I smile. "When I grow up, I want to be just like you."
To my surprise, Kate shakes her head hard. Her voice is a feather, a thread. "No Mommy," she says. "You'd be sick.
Jodi Picoult
#15. No matter how expected, death is always the ultimate surprise.
Robin Morgan
#16. Did he say:"Hullo,Pippin!This is a pleasant surprise!"?No,indeed!He said:"Get up,you tom-fool of a Took!Where,in the name of wonder,in all this ruin is Treebeard?I want him.Quick"
-Pippin Took
J.R.R. Tolkien
#17. And then, one morning, you're startled to discover that you no longer feel this terrible burden. What a surprise to notice that the angst has disappeared. Why on that particular day? Why not later, or sooner? It's the totalitarian decision of our body.
David Foenkinos
#18. That is why historians surprise me. They seem to have no talent for the likeliness of any situation. They see history like a peepshow; with two-dimensional figures against a distant background.
Josephine Tey
#19. She had Nick Lachey's body, a deep voice, very small boobies, and a crew cut. It would have come as no surprise if she had walked into the backyard to compete in a rock-hurling competition after dinner.
Chelsea Handler
#20. She would smile and show no surprise, convinced as she was, the same as I, that casual meetings are apt to be just the opposite, and that people who make dates are the same kind who need lines on their writing paper, or who always squeeze up from the bottom on a tube of toothpaste.
Julio Cortazar
#21. No, thank you, I don't mind the rain,' I said. I always lacked common sense when taken by surprise.
Anne Bronte
#23. Tell me about your project." "It's a surprise," I said loudly over the siren. "I don't like surprises." No surprise there.
Jennifer Echols
#24. However long, it's definitely the presence of other people that brings out the weirdness - that collision of your own way of being with the everyday lives of others, the abrupt awareness - always a surprise no matter how often it's happened - that their lives are very different from your own.
Lynn Coady
#25. It should surprise no one that modern soldiers return home just as conflicted and detached as previous generations. The difference is that in the age of vapid American decadence, their simpler fundamental values are largely irrelevant to we civilians.
Tiffany Madison
#26. What would you like to do with it?' he pressed. Grace thought a moment. 'Live, Monsieur Tissot. I'd like to live in great comfort. And peace.' And then she added, quite to her surprise, 'With no one to tell me what to do or how to do it.' He
Kathleen Tessaro
#28. In books by women and for women, it should come as no surprise that heroines are the heroes of the action, finding themselves, their power and their future through love.
Sarah MacLean
#29. Surprise drives progress because innovation depends on the sort of knowledge no one can gather in a central place.
Virginia Postrel
#30. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise, fear and surprise; two chief weapons, fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency! Er, among our chief weapons are: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and near fanatical devotion to the Pope! Um, I'll come in again ...
Graham Chapman
#31. It's no surprise that at the same time that American universities have engaged in a serious commitment to diversity, they have been thought-prisons. We are not talking about diversity in any real way. We are talking about brown, black, white versions of the same political ideology.
Richard Rodriguez
#32. No matter how much you try to maintain order in your life, no matter how careful you are to guard against mistakes, against imperfections, there is always some smudge, some flaw, lurking out of sight. Waiting to surprise you.
Tess Gerritsen
#33. THE NOTE said the first clue was "in the big one." I looked at the jumble of letters that followed, and I saw no pattern. Not such a surprise, since I was missing the puzzle chromosome and couldn't do puzzles designed for nine-year-olds.
Janet Evanovich
#34. It should be no surprise that when rich men take control of the government, they pass laws that are favorable to themselves. The surprise is that those who are not rich vote for such people, even though they should know from bitter experience that the rich will continue to rip off the rest of us.
Andrew Greeley
#35. My mum is incredibly leftwing, and my dad was quite rightwing - no surprise they didn't stay together - and so I had two very conflicting political opinions as a child, neither of which I was interested in taking any notice of, being a sort of little reprobate.
Nick Love
#36. That Zsadist was late was no big surprise. Z was one giant, violent fuck-you to the world.
J.R. Ward
#37. It will come as no surprise to anybody to know that I support the traditional definition of marriage as a union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, as expressed in our traditional common law.
Stephen Harper
#38. It's no surprise I am addicted to all the Republican presidential candidates. They are like crack
in that they will devastate black communities.
Stephen Colbert
#39. It's no surprise that academics in this country have been generally suspicious of business or that in a time like this, when general public confidence in the corporation has fallen, the expressions of hostility grow sharper.
James Q. Wilson
#40. I HAVE NO IDEA WHATS COMING NEXT OR WHERE IT WILL COME FROM; I ENJOY THE SURPRISE OF IT ALL.
Mandy Patinkin
#41. Some people can't see love beyond the shroud of pain and suffering, but that's no big surprise. In dire circumstances flowers seem stupid and boxes of chocolates a waste and you can't have 'true' love without those!
Bianca Sommerland
#42. Young children have no sense of wonder. They bewilder well, but few things surprise them. All of it is new to young children, after all, and equally gratuitous.
Annie Dillard
#43. For a person who lives 100 years in the future, the present comes as no surprise.
Viktor Schauberger
#44. The feeling of insecurity is inimical to our sense of wellbeing, as it causes anxiety and stress, which harms our physical and mental health. It is no surprise then that, according to some surveys, workers across the world value job security more highly than wages.
Ha-Joon Chang
#45. It comes as no surprise that average Americans have a different perception of the economy than (US President) George W. Bush and his friends. They can play around with statistics as much as they want, but it's clear that we have an unfair distribution of wealth.
Kenneth Rogoff
#46. the bus was running late, but in truth this was no surprise. Delhi probably got its name from the word 'delay'.
Karl Pilkington
#47. But after I'd survived for so long on the scraps from my own emotional table, you spoiled me with a daily banquet of complicitous what-an-asshole looks at parties, surprise bouquets for no occasion, and fridge-magnet notes that always signed off XXXX, Franklin.
Lionel Shriver
#48. Harper Lee was legendarily private. I've never known such a private woman in my life. It's no surprise that she left Monroeville, a gossipy little southern town where everybody wants to know everybody's business, and went to the most anonymous city in America.
Wayne Flynt
#49. They say that our sense of smell is one of the strongest triggers of memories. Of course, our sense of smell is integral to our sense of taste, so it is no surprise, then, that in a life full of moving and traveling, food has always been a source of familiar comfort for me.
Philippe Cousteau Jr.
#50. Analysts said Boko Haram's move came as no surprise.
Anonymous
#51. It always catches people by surprise, the moment of their death, even when they should see it coming. They always think they're special, somehow expect a reprieve. But no one's special.
Joe Abercrombie
#52. To do something familiar and succeed is no surprise, but to try something new and fail--why, that is the start of an adventure.
Maryrose Wood
#53. There is no sweeter pleasure than to surprise a man by giving him more than he hopes for.
Charles Baudelaire
#54. The presence of jihadis in Syria should be no surprise.
Elliott Abrams
#55. We don't have a farm-to-table food safety system. I keep saying this. It came as a big surprise to the FDA that tomatoes were being grown in the United States, sent to Mexico for packing, and then sent back. I mean, they had no idea that our food chain worked like this.
Marion Nestle
#56. This [a surprise attack] is an operation by no means to be despised in war, although it is rare, and less brilliant than a great strategic combination which renders victory certain even before the battle is fought.
Antoine-Henri Jomini
#57. It's no surprise that White people say things when they are together about Black people.
Henry Louis Gates
#58. Don't worry about finding your bliss right now. Not even our President knew what his bliss was, nor did I. One of these days to your own surprise, your bliss will find you. But no matter what you do, participate, be there, full force, full heart, full steam ahead.
Barbara Walters
#59. He beguiled me almost by surprise into doing wrong, then he got me accustomed to having bad thoughts which I had no will to resist - willpower being the only force capable of driving them back to the infernal darkness from which they emerged.
Marcel Proust
#60. 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.
Daniel Tammet
#61. You laugh as hard as you cry. And you give pain as beautifully as you take it. And when you love, you love harder than anyone I have ever known so it's no surprise you hurt this much.
Tiffany Reisz
#62. It's no surprise that Mitt Romney bent himself into a pretzel to disavow the portions of Obamacare that derive from his own reform in Massachusetts.
Timothy Noah
#63. Since Vice President Al Gore is constantly making things up, it should come as no surprise that he wants Supreme Court justices who will do the same. As Gore put it, he will appoint judges who view the Constitution as a 'document that grows'.
Ann Coulter
#64. I'd like to live in great comfort. And peace.' And then she added, quite to her surprise, 'With no one to tell me what to do or how to do it.
Kathleen Tessaro
#65. Chaos is no surprise. It has predictable characteristics. For one thing, it carries away order and strengthens the forces at the extremes.
Frank Herbert
#66. It was beginning to feel like an almost familiar place to be. But perhaps hitting this new low had something to be said for it, she thought now, this morning, after she had awoken and realized in some surprise that she had slept for several hours. At least now there was no further down to go. And
Mary Balogh
#67. He who fears death will never do anything worthy of a living man. But he who knows that this was the condition laid down for him at the moment of his conception will live on those terms, and at the same time he will guarantee with a similar strength of mind that no events take him by surprise.
Seneca.
#68. Happy," said Thomas. "When I grow up, I am going to be happy."
Mrs. van Amersfoort was about to pull a book from the shelf, but turned in surprise. She looked at Thomas with a smile and said, "That is a damn good idea. And do you know how happiness begins? It begins with no longer being afraid.
Guus Kuijer
#69. No matter that you anticipate a thing; you get so used to it as part of the future that its actuality, its arrival, its force and presence, startles you, takes you by surprise, as would a ghost suddenly appearing in the room wearing familiar perfume and boots.
Lorrie Moore
#70. (Peaceful Jews, I like that. Could be the only example in history of peaceful Jews. No surprise that only Hollywood could come with a concept like peaceful Jews, which is surely a type of human being that has never before been seen in history. Go tell the Palestinians about peaceful Jews.)
Anonymous
#71. You allow the world to think you're a heartless murderer," I tell him. "And you're not."
He laughs, once; his eyebrows lifting in surprise. "No," he says. "I'm afraid I'm just the regular kind of murderer.
Tahereh Mafi
#72. It's no surprise that appeals to a state of mind called faith can relieve symptoms caused, at least in part, by another, perhaps not very different state of mind.
Carl Sagan
#73. Apparently with no surprise To any happy Flower The Frost beheads it at its play
In accidental power
The blonde Assassin passes on
The Sun proceeds unmoved To measure off another Day For an Approving God.
Emily Dickinson
#74. I'm one of five; I have three sisters, so I've always had three best girlfriends. Actually, I'm the middle child, so it's no surprise I went into acting! There's a need to be seen.
Jordana Spiro
#75. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except for the ones that succeed.
Michael Parenti
#76. Mrs. Allen was one of that numerous class of females, whose society can raise no other emotion than surprise at there being any men in the world who could like them well enough to marry them. She had neither beauty, genius, accomplishment, nor manner.
Jane Austen
#77. Childhood boredom is a special kind of boredom. It is a boredom full of dreams, a sort of projection into another place, into another reality. In adulthood boredom is made of repetition, it is the continuation of something from which we are no longer expecting any surprise.
Italo Calvino
#78. It's no surprise companies that quickly grow in value attract those who may want to also profit from the hard work of others.
Evan Spiegel
#79. It may be no surprise that Pittsburgh has direct flights to London, Paris and Frankfurt, but consider this: many of the tourists here have come from Europe to the capital of culture in the Alleghenies.
Bill Dedman
#80. I use primal imagery, so maybe it's fitting that I use the most primitive of cameras [pinhole cameras]. Since there's no viewfinder, the image is much more of a surprise - as if some outsider came and looked at earth for the first time.
Barbara Ess
#81. It's no surprise that I ended up in sportscasting. I lived this world with my father, Mike Storen. Dad was a sports executive for most of my childhood.
Hannah Storm
#82. Her face was slender and milk-white, and in it was a kind of gentle hunger that touched over everything with tireless curiosity. It was a look, almost, of pale surprise; the dark eyes were so fixed to the world that no moved escaped them.
Ray Bradbury
#83. I think I could write another book as surprising as this one, or even as weird as this one; but it would no longer surprise people that I can be surprising. My audience would no longer find it weird to discover that I can be weird.
Bruce Sterling
#84. It's no surprise to say I oppose the ban [of Donald Trump].If we only allow free speech for those we already agree with, is that free speech at all?
Edward Leigh
#85. If you have a surprise idea, don't let it go! No matter if it's 4 AM, 6 AM or 12 AM, don't let it go! It might have been a great one!
B.A. Gabrielle
#86. It should cause no surprise that anyone so lazy as myself should be economical to the point of miserliness with everything he writes.
Leslie Charteris
#87. Whether wisely or not, one of the first priorities of the incoming Obama administration was to present a package of healthcare benefits, which, to no one's surprise, produced an uproar in Congress and an assortment of polls declaring that the majority of Americans were opposed to it.
Sherwin B. Nuland
#88. It came as no surprise to learn of the success the Swede has recently enjoyed with his furniture. In that rotten state of his the Swede is permanently on the lookout for firewood, so it is no wonder that from time to time this might result in the odd table or chair.
Timur Vermes
#89. There's no need to whisper," Elizabeth told her now. "You could sing at the top of your voices and no one would hear you out here on the water." But the women smiled at her suggestion in surprise and unease, as if she had told them that they could fly.
Sara Donati
#90. I have no ambition to surprise my reader. Castles with unknown passages are not compatible with my homely muse.
Anthony Trollope
#91. Writing the record for me - every record is almost a surprise. When people ask me, what are the themes you want to grapple with on this one? I have no idea until the record's finished.
Alanis Morissette
#92. No one says "Gee Whiz!" very much these days, of course, not even in America - both because that expression has long since been supplanted by others more colourful and less printable, and because our capacity for surprise has long since been dulled by a surfeit of sources.
Shashi Tharoor
#93. there really is no such thing as 'the future', singular. There are only multiple, unforeseeable futures, which will never lose their capacity to take us by surprise.
Niall Ferguson
#94. Of all the foods we share, there is nothing more primordial than meat. It's no surprise that meat-eaters still want a partner who will give, receive and share this primordial symbol of a budding partnership.
Helen Fisher
#95. Fame is always a shock to the system; there's no school to go to, there are no books to read, and when it hits you, it's a surprise. You could be working for 10, 20 years and when it finally hits you, you get knocked down.
Barry Manilow
#96. No phrase can convey the idea of surprise so vividly as opening the eyes and raising the eyebrows. A shrug of the shoulders would lose much by translation into words.
Herbert Spencer
#97. There were no absolutes in fiction, no certain way to deliver what was needed. So it was no surprise most technical writers considered novel-writing a gateway to madness.
S.A. Reid
#98. The longer I've been doing this, the more I've realized that you have no idea what kinds of roles are possible for you - dream roles can take you by surprise. That being said, I need to play Hamlet one day. I'd also love to be in a play that I have written myself.
Jake Epstein
#99. Why is it a surprise that I'm a girl? Did I seem particularly masculine online?" "No, but ... you didn't seem particularly feminine," Max said. "What does that even mean?" He massaged the corners of his eyes. "I don't know. Forget it." "You didn't seem particularly sexist online, but here we are.
E.C. Myers
#100. I never understood the concept of showing everything in the trailer. Why go to a movie if there's no surprise? I can't do it like that.
Spike Lee
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