the table of elements does not contain one of the most powerful elements that make up our world, and that is the element of surprise.
It is almost as if happiness is an acquired taste, like coconut cordial or ceviche, to which you can eventually become accustomed, but despair is something surprising each time you encounter it.
Godshawk looked surprised, the way that people generally do when you ask them philosophical questions in shrubberies in the middle of the night.
There should be a word for a laugh that ends as soon as it starts. A laugh that's more a syllable of surprise and acknowledgment than it is anything else.
The word morality, if we met it in the Bible, would surprise us as much as the word telephone or motor car.
I was surprised. I'd always associated belief in heaven with, frankly, a kind of intellectual disengagement. But Gus wasn't dumb.
Families are so important here," I said. She looked surprised. "They are not everywhere?
It was like magic, but so much of magic is about misdirection, whereas so much of redemption is straightforward and ordinary, piercing true and lit with surprise.
I love arguing with you, Claire. You always surprise me. And occasionally, you even make sense.
As many authors have said, if the writer is not surprised by events, then chances are that the reader will not be either, and grow bored.
Rising from the dead? Glowing at sunrise? What did that make him, the god of cheerful mornings and macabre surprises?
I'm surprised." My eyes find hers as I cock an eyebrow. "Why?" "You loved science." "I loved you more.
Questions are great, but only if you know the answers. If you ask questions and the answers surprise you, you look silly.
One of the surprising discoveries of modern psychology is how easy it is to be ignorant of your own ignorance.
When you have traveled the world, won Olympic gold, and gone through a very public court battle against your parents all by the age of seventeen, surprises don't come easy.
Most of the time, people look at a piece of art online when it is just a few blocks from their house. Changing the way you walk home everyday fills life with surprises.
Political consultants are pugilists, masters in the dark art of negativity. Which is why it's surprising to hear Democrats such as Steve McMahon and Republicans like Rich Galen urging their presidential candidates to be more, well, positive.
People told her she hadn't changed much, in a tone which hinted they were surprised and a little disappointed she hadn't.
It was shepherds who were the first to recognize a king that the rest of the world refused to acknowledge. So it’s not surprising that kings would talk to shepherds.
You ‘accidentally’ touched his bottom? Didn’t that happen when you last saw him as well? Surprising how often that seems to be a problem.
It's never the differences between people that surprise us. It's the things that, against all odds, we have in common.
