Top 53 Quotes About Startle
#1. I try to write in plain brown blocks of American speech but occasionally set in an ancient word or a strange word just to startle the reader a little bit and to break up the monotony of the plain American cadence.
James Laughlin
#2. To hear the lark begin his flight, And singing startle the dull Night, From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise.
John Milton
#3. I write totally spontaneously. I actually write fiction by hand - that always seems to startle people. I think the reason I do that is to bypass the thinking part of me and get to the more unconscious part, which is where all the good ideas seem to be.
Jennifer Egan
#4. How about a kiss, hey?" Etta liked that she was still able to startle him, just a little. The blank look of concentration broke as he barked out a laugh. "I don't know if that's a wise idea. We'd never leave.
Alexandra Bracken
#5. My prayer is that what we have gone through [World War One] will startle the world into some new realization of the sanctity of life, animal as well as human.
Christopher Morley
#6. With slow care rather than stealth we must approach the subject of a certain woman. Her wildness is of such degree, I fear approaching her too quickly even in a story. Should I move recklessly, I might startle even the idea of her into sudden flight.
Patrick Rothfuss
#7. I'd forgotten how that sort of craving felt, how it rose suddenly and loudly from the pit of my stomach like a flock of startle birds, then floated back down in the slow, beguiling way of feathers.
Sue Monk Kidd
#8. The essence of humor is that it should be unexpected, that it should embody an element of surprise, that it should startle us out of that reasonable gravity which, after all, must be our habitual frame of mind.
Agnes Repplier
#9. And the roaches. The roaches were so bold in his flat that turning on the lights did not startle them. They waved their three-inch antennas as if to say, Hey, puto, turn that shit off.
Junot Diaz
#10. Most schools have a loud system of loud bells, which startle the students and teachers at regular intervals and remind them that time is passing even more slowly than it seems.
Lemony Snicket
#11. The angel lay in the little thicket. It had no need of love. There was nothing anywhere in the world could startle it. We can lie here with the angel if we like. It couldn't have hurt much when they slit its throat.
Kenneth Patchen
#12. A writer must be willing to leave oneself behind in order to explore new territories of the mind and unearth primordial truths that startle and frighten us.
Kilroy J. Oldster
#13. I've learnt not to draw my sword first to strike.
That in no way portends I have the most feeble of minds or might . . .
Probably, I'm waiting for the perfect moment to startle with a fatal strike.
Ufuoma Apoki
#14. He's dozed off again, but I kiss him awake, which seems to startle him. Then he smiles as if he'd be happy to lie there gazing at me forever.
Suzanne Collins
#15. Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.
John Keats
#16. Truth derives its strength not so much from itself as from the brilliant contrast it makes with what is only apparently true. This applies especially to Chess, where it is often found that the profoundest moves do not much startle the imagination.
Emanuel Lasker
#17. He's like a deer; I don't want to make any sudden movements and startle his thoughts away.
Sandy Hall
#18. Glenn Beck retired or got fired ... and a lot of people are asking who will now speak for the raving lunatics who startle you outside of a parking garage?
Bill Maher
#19. Poetry can startle you, awaken you, make you fall in love, take your breath away. When those words sink in, you'll never look at your life or your journey the same way again.
Maria Shriver
#20. He with whom neither slander that gradually soaks into the mind, nor statements that startle like a wound in the flesh, are successful may be called intelligent indeed.
Confucius
#21. I want to produce images that startle one into recollection.
John Baldessari
#22. The instant trivial as it is is all we have unless-unless things the imagination feeds upon, the scent of the rose, startle us anew.
William Carlos Williams
#23. The idea that stories slavishly obey deep structural patterns seems at first vaguely depressing. But it shouldn't be. Think of the human face. The fact that all faces are very much alike doesn't make the face boring or mean that particular faces can't startle us with their beauty or distinctiveness.
Jonathan Gottschall
#24. By the very nature of his art, which depends on invention and innovation, a story teller must depart from the beaten track and, having done so, occasionally startle and disagree with some of his associates. Healthy disagreement we must have.
Preston Sturges
#25. Fortunately, by the time I'd gotten to the stairs I had finished gasping and stepping on dead people, so I was pretty prepared for the next thing to startle me out of my skin.
April White
#26. Nico didn't respond. He'd never had anyone talk to him this openly before, except maybe for Hazel. He felt like he was watching a flock of birds settle on a field. One loud sound might startle them away.
Rick Riordan
#29. However now we can create a sound that can truly startle someone and in terms of sound effects I think the environment that we are in now has improved dramatically.
Nobuo Uematsu
#30. behind ourself, concealed - should startle most," wrote Emily Dickinson,
Stephen Cope
#31. You may borrow them, if
you wish," so I could avoid letting him startle me.
"I'd like that very much."
"I should warn you, however, that I have several volumes devoted to curses for
people who don't return books."
"I'd like to borrow those, too.
Steven Brust
#32. Death had vanished from the streets of America, thought Shadow; now it happened in hospital rooms and in ambulances. We must not startle the living,
Neil Gaiman
#33. Eloquence which does not startle I don't consider eloquence. CICERO, LETTER TO BRUTUS, 48 B.C.
Robert Harris
#34. My mood, I say, was one of exaltation. I felt as a seeing man might do, with padded feet and noiseless clothes, in a city of the blind. I experienced a wild impulse to jest, to startle people, to clap men on the back, fling people's hats astray, and generally revel in my extraordinary advantage.
H.G.Wells
#35. I have read that there are two fears that cannot be trained out of us: the startle reaction upon hearing an unexpected noise, and vertigo. I would like to add a third, to wit, the rapid and direct approch of a known killer
Yann Martel
#36. The service of philosophy, of speculative culture, towards the human spirit, is to rouse, to startle it to a life of constant and eager observation.
Walter Pater
#37. When I am out there, in time, I am inverted, changed into a desperate version of myself. I become a thief, a vagrant, an animal who runs and hides. I startle old women and amaze children. I am a trick, an illusion of the highest order, so incredible that I am actually true.
Audrey Niffenegger
#38. It was very difficult to startle or surprise someone with a particular sound during the family computer era.
Nobuo Uematsu
#39. Though we seem to be sleeping, there is an inner wakefulness that directs the dream, and will eventually startle us back to the truth of who we are.
Rumi
#40. Jem spoke with enormous care; talking to Will about anything personal was like trying not to startle away a wild animal.
Cassandra Clare
#42. Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father and how familiar His face is to us.
Ezra Taft Benson
#43. Bears, dragons, tempestuous on mountain and river, Startle the forest and make the heights tremble. Clouds darken beneath the darkness of rain, streams pale with a pallor of mist. The gods of Thunder and Lightning Shatter the whole range.
Li Bai
#44. Art should startle the viewer into thinking about the meaning of life.
Antoni Tapies
#46. When I die of heart failure the next time you frighten me like that, you can put that on my gravestone - 'I didn't mean to startle her.
Patricia Briggs
#47. Time dissolves in summer anyway: days are long, weekends longer. Hours get all thin and watery when you are lost in the book you'd never otherwise have time to read. Senses are sharper - something about the moist air and bright light and fruit in season - and so memories stir and startle.
Nancy Gibbs
#48. Other intelligent life-forms will differ greatly in appearance - they may resemble the creature in E.T. or startle us with their beauty - but life itself is common, I'm certain.
Frank Drake
#49. Sometimes we think we know people at first sight," he said. "As though we'd met them a hundred times before, in another life, in another world. And then we realize that we know nothing. How did they look as children? What dreams startle them from their sleep?
Cornelia Funke
#50. It will startle you to see what slaves we are to by-gone times-to Death, if we give the matter the right word! ... We read in Dead Men's books! We laugh at Dead Men's jokes, and cry at Dead Men's pathos! ... Whatever we seek to do, of our own free motion, a Dead Man's icy hand obstructs us!
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#51. Coming from a farming background, I saw nothing out of the ordinary in running barefoot, although it seemed to startle the rest of the athletics world. I have always enjoyed going barefoot and when I was growing up I seldom wore shoes, even when I went into town.
Zola Budd
#52. You look beautiful," Alodia says.
I startle at the compliment. Then I smile. "I'm beautiful to the one person who matters."
She nods. "Hector's mouth is going to drop open when he sees you."
"I hope so. But I meant me. I'm beautiful to me.
Rae Carson
#53. When did the business community in America become so sensitive? ... that we have to treat like some type of rare exotic animal - don't startle them or they'll fly away! ... we need to soothe them so they can nest here and lay their magic eggs full of jobs! - WHICH NEVER HATCH BY THE WAY!!! ...
Bill Maher
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