Startling Quotes

#1. I was about to sit down when Kyle's hand wrapped around my left wrist lightly and pulled up my arm. The suddenness of his touch was startling. I looked at him, confused, and saw fire in his eyes - raw anger I didn't understand. His eyes looked up at me and penetrated mine.

Christie Cote

#2. When you actually see Barack Obama, it's startling how slight he is and how young he looks.

Simon Hoggart

#3. But the scrawny, powerless man with his arms outstretched on the cross had at some point reclaimed Otsu. Still, that doesn't change the fact that I won. With startling rapacity God had merely picked up a man I discarded.

Shusaku Endo

#4. Emily Dickinson has haunted my life - her poems, her persona, all the tales about her solitude. Ever since I discovered her in the seventh grade, I've had a crush on that spinster in white, who had such a heroic and startling inner landscape of her own.

Jerome Charyn

#5. came bounding towards her, startling

Carol Drinkwater

#6. Jung introduced the idea of synchronicity to strip off the fantasy, magic, and superstition which surround and are provoked by unpredictable, startling, and impressive events that, like these, appear to be connected.

C. G. Jung

#7. I saw a startling sight today, a politician with his hands in his own pockets.

Mark Twain

#8. Although the client-centered approach had its origin purely within the limits of the psychological clinic, it is proving to have implications, often of a startling nature, for very diverse fields of effort.

Carl Rogers

#9. I had finished the first draft of 'Life As We Knew It' before Katrina hit, and it was startling to see things I wrote about actually happening in the real world.

Susan Beth Pfeffer

#10. A startling thought this, that a woman could handle business matters as well or better than a man, a revolutionary thought to Scarlett who had been reared in the tradition that men were omniscient and women none too bright.

Margaret Mitchell

#11. Something deep inside me lurched.
The stirring was as startling and unpleasant as it was thrilling and revolutionary.

Stephanie Perkins

#12. It's a sad and grotesque thing that you and your friends have become so accustomed to lies that the truth has to be prefaced because it's inherently surprising, a startling departure from the lies that comprise your lives.

Caroline Kepnes

#13. It's a bit startling to achieve global recognition before the age of 30 on account of your sister, your brother-in-law and your bottom. One day I might be able to make sense of this. In the meantime I think it's fair to say that it has its upside and its downside.

Pippa Middleton

#14. A startling and engrossing commentary on the complex actuality and continuing heritage of American slavery.

Sherley Anne Williams

#15. When information rubs against information the results are startling and effective. The perrenial quest for involvement, fill-in, takes many forms.

Marshall McLuhan

#16. We are so lucky to live here, he would say, and she couldn't disagree. They were lucky that the earth had conspired to heap up such startling beauty in one place, and they were lucky that it hadn't all fallen apart yet in a a geological catastrophe.

Chris Adrian

#17. My memoirs were written, and a portion of them already in the hands of the publishers, when the startling news came which has thrilled all Europe and filled her inhabitants with horror - the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States.

Belle Boyd

#18. Father, we thank you, especially for letting me fly this flight - for the privilege of being able to be in this position, to be in this wondrous place, seeing all these many startling, wonderful things that you have created.

Gordon Cooper

#19. It is almost startling to hear this warning of departed time sounding among the tombs, and telling the lapse of the hour, which, like a billow, has rolled us onward towards the grave.

Washington Irving

#20. To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

Emily Dickinson

#21. When you reach a certain age, suddenly there are lots of people younger than you, which is really startling.

Fran Lebowitz

#22. It had been a startling day for young Copperfield: most of the morning confined in an enema-bag carton; his first attempt at flight; his long fall through the weeds; and then sitting on that dead man's face.

John Irving

#23. His words awakened a startling realization. Not just love-pain. Not just joy-fear. In order to have the good, you had to also take the bad, because without the lows, the highs wouldn't, couldn't exist. All emotions were crucial to living. All of them.

Debra Driza

#24. I never said anything that was unprintable. Never said anything just for the sake of being startling.

Bette Davis

#25. If it can be verified, we don't need faith ... Faith is for that which lies on the other side of reason. Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.

Madeleine L'Engle

#26. Sometimes the pain is a startling breach that hobbles your entire soul; dreadful losses that rupture your perceived reality. Pain so visceral and unrelenting that even death itself can begin to look like a welcomed and kind benefactor.

Bryant McGill

#27. Startling, and alarming to many, is the conclusion that follows from these data that if all people were treated the same, most average race differences would not disappear.

J. Philippe Rushton

#28. Startling as the Gospel of Judas sounds, it amplifies hints we have long read in the Gospels of Mark and John that Jesus knew and even instigated the events of his passion, seeing them as part of a divine plan.

Elaine Pagels

#29. The human race is all the same when it comes to romantic relations,' said the Major. 'A startling absence of impulse control combined with complete myopia.

Helen Simonson

#30. I have found in experiments, people become used to the robots. The less startling they become, the more commonplace they get. If these robots do become commonplace, then that uncanny effect will go away.

David Hanson

#31. I remember being shocked when I came out from under the focusing cloth after a minute or two being submerged within that, at the startling green color of those ferns.

John Sexton

#32. Display startling novelty-rise afresh like the sun every day. Change too the scene on which you shine, so that you rloss may be felt in the old scenes of your triumph, while the novelty of your powers wins applause in the new.

Baltasar Gracian

#33. House-training, I must tell you, is a formality that can elude young dachshunds for some time; this is particularly true in climates that affront their sensibilities with outrageous meteorological insults. Rain, for example, or a startling gust of wind.

Mary Doria Russell

#34. Being born in Cuba, a country where freedom of speech is non-existent, it's startling to observe how Venezuela, where I was happily raised, is fast becoming Cuba's mirror image: Dismantling of fundamental democratic rights deserved by its people and citizens of the world.

Maria Conchita Alonso

#35. Better than anything you've come up with," Jacob answered, his human voice startling me. "Go fetch a space heater," he grumbled. "I'm not a St. Bernard.

Stephenie Meyer

#36. Finally, I could see with startling clarity that the time I had spent experiencing pain on a run was outweighed by the amount of time that I felt good about it. I was aglow. I was invincible. I was thinking I might be able to do it again.

Alexandra Heminsley

#37. Human nature is not amenable to prediction based on the trends or tendencies prevailing at the time. It is amenable to startling creativity of the kind practiced by great artists, directors, writers, musicians, actors, who know how to touch a chord in humans everywhere.

Maurice Saatchi

#38. A number of studies of homeless youth in big cities put forth a startling statistic: Depending on the study, somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of homeless youths identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

Margot Adler

#39. It was like when you're a little kid and you run into your teacher or librarian at the grocery store or Wal-mart and it's just so startling, because it never occurred to you they existed outside of school.

Sarah Dessen

#40. There was good in him. Raw, molten goodness, bubbling deep in his core. But he didn't possess the charm or manners to control it. It just erupted periodically in volcano fashion, startling anyone who happened to be nearby.

Tessa Dare

#41. There is more in art, with an apology to that much abused word, as applied to photography, than startling display lines, on mounts and signs announcing artist Photographer, Artistic Photography Studio, etc., and the lower the standard the more frantic the claim ...

Gertrude Kasebier

#42. The miracle is this: that you will rise in the morning and be able to see again the startling beauty of the day.

William Kent Krueger

#43. The great thing about novels is that you can be as unshy as you want to be. I'm very polite in person. I don't want to talk about startling or upsetting things with people.

Nicholson Baker

#44. Wait, wait," Gaius cut in, his grin mischievous. "Before we go any further. I must make introductions. Keita, this is Kachka Shestakova of the - "
"Do not," the She-dragon roared, startling the birds from the trees, and the men training nearby, "again bore me with those ridiculously long names!

G.A. Aiken

#45. Every significant invention must be startling, unexpected, and must come into a world that is not prepared for it. If the world were prepared for it, it would not be much of an invention.

Edwin H. Land

#46. I wasn't exactly known for self-confidence, but I could taste the cake in my mind. Strong. Earthy. Fragrant. I remembered the nose-prickling aroma of cinnamon when it comes in fragile curls, and the startling power of crushed cloves.

Ruth Reichl

#47. Almost from childhood, she knew that a concentration camp was nothing exceptional or startling but something very basic, a given into which we are born and from which we can escape only with the greatest of efforts.

Milan Kundera

#48. Such were the loud and startling words which resounded through the air, above the vast watery desert of the Pacific, about four o'clock in the evening of the 23rd of March, 1865.

Jules Verne

#49. The eyes she had wondered about turned out to be the most startling shade of blue-green she had even seen in her life. Ringed by raven lashes and a dark foreboding brow, they pierced her very soul.

Paula Quinn

#50. Cursing, Scarlet pressed the unlock mechanism again. Nothing. Then the control panel pinged, startling her, and a message scrolled across the top. BE CAREFUL, SCARLET. Her jaw fell. What - ?

Marissa Meyer

#51. He was so easygoing, she forgot he could be deadly. And startling as his anger was, it gave her another key to understanding him.

Suzanne Enoch

#52. Above all, a well-imagined story is organized around extraordinary human behaviors and unexpected and startling events, which help illuminate the commonplace and the ordinary.

Tim O'Brien

#53. Truth is more peculiar than fiction. Life is really a startling place.

Mira Nair

#54. Pilgrimages of mind or walking meditation - bringing moments of illumination in which the sense of relationship to the rest of existence suddenly stands out with startling and unexpected clarity.

David Fontana

#55. Keetje Kuipers' poems are daring, formally beautiful and driven by rich imagery and startling ideas.

Tracy K. Smith

#56. And this is the only really startling thing about the evil of the world: not that so much of it exists, but that nobody ever really expects it.

Andrew Pyper

#57. Because my work is naturally non-meaningful, the meaning found in it will remain doubtful and inconsistent - which is the way it should be. All that I care about is that, like any startling piece of nature, it should be capable of stimulating meaning.

Claes Oldenburg

#58. The physical voice we use in prayer need not be great nor startling; even should we not lift up any great cry or shout, God will yet hear us.

Origen

#59. You know it with startling clarity in that moment - how there's only a singular cord in this knotted mess of a world worth reaching for. It's dangling right there from our impossible tangle, and it's the one hope you need to reach for this Advent. That scarlet lifeline of Christ.

Ann Voskamp

#60. Because of her, he had learned to look for the birds - the darting flight of wild canaries (yellow sun on yellow wings), the chesty preening of redbirds and bluebirds, the blackbird with the red-tipped wings like startling epaulets.

Terry Kay

#61. You can make startling changes you can't even conceive of right now, if you just give yourself half a chance.

Jim Rohn

#62. It's as if inside the White House the belief in Obama's inspirational charisma is still such that every time the ugliness of brute politics intrudes, it's a startling revelation.

Tina Brown

#63. As I see it, life is an effort to grip before they slip through one's fingers and slide into oblivion, the startling, the ghastly or the blindingly exquisite fish of the imagination before they whip away on the endless current and are lost for ever in oblivion's black ocean.

Mervyn Peake

#64. You tell them the truth," Ash said, startling me. I wasn't expecting him to answer. "From the beginning. Either they accept it, or they don't, but you can't hide who you are, especially from your family. Best to get it over with - we can deal with whatever happens after." His

Julie Kagawa

#65. Yet love can move people to act in unexpected ways and move them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with startling heroism

Khaled Hosseini

#66. The people who related to God best
Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah
treated him with startling familiarity. They talked to God as if he were sitting in a chair beside them, as one might talk to a counselor, a boss, a parent, or a lover. They treated him like a person.

Philip Yancey

#67. Oh, my God! Gwen suddenly burst out, startling the bears in the room, which made the rest of the predators nervous.

Shelly Laurenston

#68. The startling thing about her simplifying instinct was that the more she did away with fashion in search for comfort and the more she passed over conventions as she obeyed spontaneity, the more disturbing her incredible beauty became and the more provocative she become to men.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

#69. The vase was a solid, dark green stone carved into plain surfaces; the texture of its smooth curves provoked an irresistible desire to touch it. It seemed startling in that office, incongruous with the sternness of the rest: it was a touch of sensuality.

Ayn Rand

#70. Yet even the most hackneyed, shopworn science fiction or fantasy tale will feel startling and fresh to a naive reader who doesn't know the milieu is just like the one used in a thousand other stories.

Orson Scott Card

#71. Nature and society are so replete with startling contrasts that wit often consists in the mere statement and comparison of facts, as when Hume says that the ancient Muscovites wedded their wives with a whip instead of a ring.

Edwin Percy Whipple

#72. bells. "I accept your kind invitation," Zelikman said. "My services as a physician ought just to offset my fare." The elephant gave a low moan, startling them, and a moment later they heard a faint trill, carried on the wind from off the river, and then another. "Trumpets," the nephew said.

Michael Chabon

#73. Neurologists tell us a startling truth that has major implications for spiritual formation: Our choices and experience shape our brain, both literally and physiologically. What we choose cognitively helps make us into who we are.

Gary L. Thomas

#74. What I really like is an intelligent review. It doesn't have to be positive. A review that has some kind of insight, and sometimes people say something that's startling or is so poignant.

Patti Smith

#75. I've been doing American auditions for a while, and it always felt sort of like sending these audition tapes off into the ether. So just hearing anything back from anyone was kind of startling.

Xavier Samuel

#76. So many other countries have had female leaders, in fact the U.S. ranks 61st in female representation in government and I think it is startling and sign of a change that needs to be made.

Geena Davis

#77. Lady Gaga is still a human being, she was still among us! But now, she's a little monster, she says. She does her face a certain way. It's pretty startling. But she's a great girl. She's cool from what I remember.

Kerry Rhodes

#78. One of the most startling events in my life was when my older son was about 16, and he blamed me for all the troubles of the world. So I, I felt like telling him, 'Oh no, I was just like you when I was your age; I wanted to change the world, too.'

Robert Fogel

#79. Beauty is startling. She wears a gold shawl in the summer and sells seven kinds of honey at the flea market. She is young and old at once, my daughter and my grandmother. In school she excelled in mathematics and poetry ... Beauty will dance with anyone who is brave enough to ask her.

J. Ruth Gendler

#80. The experience of the human, male or female, cannot be completely defined by one startling, surprising, or gigantic life experience.

Jenny Slate

#81. The action of naming an issue instead of evading it, was so unlike the usual behavior of all the men he knew, it was such a sudden, startling relief ...

Ayn Rand

#82. I may conclude this chapter by quoting a saying of Professor Agassiz, that whenever a new and startling fact is brought to light in science, people first say, 'it is not true,' then that 'it is contrary to religion,' and lastly, 'that everybody knew it before.

Charles Lyell

#83. When you look on one of your contemporary 'good copies' of historical remains, ask yourself the question: Not what style, but in what civilization is this building? And the absurdity, vulgarity, anachronism and solecism of the modern structure will be revealed to you in a most startling fashion.

Louis Sullivan

#84. For an introvert his environment is himself and can never be subject to startling or unforeseen change.

Quentin Crisp

#85. Marian Palaia is a writer of startling grace and sensuous lyricism - reading her, you feel as if you've never heard language this beautiful and this true.

Jonis Agee

#86. As any editor will tell you, startling newsroom revelations are generally met with queries about where the information came from and how the reporter got it. Seriously startling revelations are followed by the vetting of libel lawyers.

Graydon Carter

#87. That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky, without contributing any value to society! And that is called enterprise! I know of no more startling development of the immorality of trade, and all the common modes of getting a living.

Henry David Thoreau

#88. It is possible to make each year bring with it a lasting gift to add to the fullness of experience, to be treasured up, savored, and remembered. They need not be startling, these gifts of the years; they may be things that lie within the reach of all.

Grenville Kleiser

#89. It seems impossible that she could have liked someone like Mitchell when there was someone like this guy in the world, someone tall and lanky, with tousled hair and startling green eyes and a speck of mustard on his chin, like the one small imperfection that makes the whole painting work somehow.

Jennifer E. Smith

#90. Only some radical change can divert the downward course of my spirit, some startling new place or people to arrest the drift, the drag.

Tennessee Williams

#91. For a startling period of my life, I reported the Troubles in Ireland for the BBC. I lived in Dublin and was called out to all sorts of incidents that, if taken together, add up to a war - bombings, assassinations, riots, shootings, robberies, jailbreaks, kidnappings, and sieges.

Frank Delaney

#92. The most startling aspect of the nutrition situation in India is that it is not much of an issue in public debates and electoral politics.

Jean Dreze

#93. I am well in body although considerably rumpled up in spirit, thank you, ma'am,' said Anne gravely. Then aside to Marilla in an audible whisper, 'There wasn't anything startling in that, was there, Marilla?

L.M. Montgomery

#94. There is in even the most selfish passion a large element of self-abnegation. It is startling to realize that what we call extreme self-seeking is actually self-renunciation. The miser, health addict, glory chaser and their like are not far behind the selfless in the exercise of self-sacrifice.

Eric Hoffer

#95. It is startling to see how the oppressed almost invariably shape themselves in the image of their hated oppressors.

Eric Hoffer

#96. He had forgotten how convincing the world could look, how sure of itself: its outlines and edges; it's gradations, recessions, protrusions; it's startling and vulgar colors.

Gregory Maguire

#97. In the 1970's and in early 1980's, a startling discovery was made that almost every problem contains an element of solutions.

Insoo Kim Berg

#98. all of the oceans
& galaxies
did not
conspire together to
create me
just so i could
reproduce for
you.

-Startling Fact #1

Amanda Lovelace

#99. Sirius's gaunt face broke out into the first true smile Harry had seen upon it. The difference it made was startling, as though a person ten years younger were shining through the starved mask; for a moment he was recognizable as the man who had laughed at Harry's parents' wedding.

J.K. Rowling

#100. The city of Pittsburgh gleaming suddenly before her ... so startling in its vastness and its beauty that she had gasped and slowed, afraid of losing control of the car

Kim Edwards