Home > Topic > my surprise
1 " Ben kissed me like he could kiss me forever, like he had to kiss me forever and he wanted to, he wanted me, and when he felt my surprise at that, I could feel again how beautiful I was to him, how I was beautiful beyond words. "
― Ivy Devlin , Low Red Moon
2 " And so seated next to my father in the train compartment, I suddenly asked, " Father, what is sexsin?" He turned to look at me, as he always did when answering a question, but to my surprise he said nothing. At last he stood up, lifted his traveling case off the floor and set it on the floor.Will you carry it off the train, Corrie?" he said.I stood up and tugged at it. It was crammed with the watches and spare parts he had purchased that morning.It's too heavy," I said.Yes," he said, " and it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It's the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger, you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you. "
3 " And then to my surprise in one of them I discovered the original manuscript of On Friendship. Puzzled, I unrolled it, thinking I must have brought it with me by mistake. But when I saw that Cicero had copied out at the top of the roll in his shaking hand a quotation from the text, on the importance of having friends, I realised it was a parting gift: If a man ascended into heaven and gazed upon the whole workings of the universe and the beauty of the stars, the marvellous sight would give him no joy if he had to keep it to himself. And yet, if only there had been someone to describe the spectacle to, it would have filled him with delight. Nature abhors solitude. "
― Robert Harris , Dictator (Cicero, #3)
4 " Hi!'The chirpy little voice greeted me with such energised enthusiasm it made me jump nearly a foot out of my seat. I turned around, expecting to see the usual cocky little Bezzer-in-training Tyler, who every once in a while enjoys pissing off as many people on the bus as possible, but to my surprise it was the scruffy little quiet Year 7 who sits at the front of the bus with his big orange hair bouncing around.'Hello,' I replied dubiously. (You can't assume that a kid isn't intending to give you grief just because he has ginger hair, not these days. What is the world coming to?) "
― Tom Clempson , One Seriously Messed-Up Week in the Otherwise Mundane and Uneventful Life of Jack Samsonite (Jack Samsonite, #1)
5 " A book can be a great friend, an advisor, a means to an end. A book reveals so much more than a movie would ever do. For example, when I watched the movie “The Hours” I was fascinated by the story. Just a year later I decided to read the book. And what was my surprise that I was even more dazzled by its writings than I was by the images… The images in my head were more vivid than the film could ever transport me to that feminine universe that the author was trying (and so successfully granted me) to conceive… "
― Ana Claudia Antunes
6 " What are you dreams, Twylla?”“I – I have none. I have all I want.”“I don’t believe that. You must have some dreams – everyone does.” “I want…I want to be happy,” I say, realizing at once that it’s a stupid thing to say. But to my surprise he’s nodding, a smile tugging at his lips. “I want to be happy too. "
7 " For years I'd been trying to forget..., locking it up and burying it deep in my memory. The journey... had shattered that, bringing it all back - but now that I'd faced it, I found to my surprise that the fear had been worse than the reality. "
― Benedict Jacka , Fated (Alex Verus, #1)
8 " That the sum of a man's life was not where he wound up but in the details that brought him there. That we made mistakes.I closed my eyes, sick of the riddles, and to my surprise all I could see were dandelions-as if they had been painted on the fields of my imagination, a hundred thousand suns. And I remembered something else that makes us human: faith, the only weapon in our arsenal to battle doubt. "
9 " BearingsYou are my dear compass,who knows no way but true,so when I'm lost and drifting,I find myself in you.Yet when I ask you, fearful,if I should set you free,imagine my surprise to hearyou take your north from me. "
― Louise Hawes , The Language of Stars
10 " . . . to my surprise I began to know what The Language was about, not just the part we were singing now but the whole poem. It began with the praise and joy in all creation, copying the voice of the wind and the sea. It described sun and moon, stars and clouds, birth and death, winter and spring, the essence of fish, bird, animal, and man. It spoke in what seemed to be the language of each creature. . . . It spoke of well, spring, and stream, of the seed that comes from the loins of a male creature and of the embryo that grows in the womb of the female. It pictured the dry seed deep in the dark earth, feeling the rain and the warmth seeping down to it. It sang of the green shoot and of the tawny heads of harvest grain standing out in the field under the great moon. It described the chrysalis that turns into a golden butterfly, the eggs that break to let out the fluffy bird life within, the birth pangs of woman and of beast. It went on to speak of the dark ferocity of the creatures that pounce upon their prey and plunge their teeth into it--it spoke in the muffled voice of bear and wolf--it sang the song of the great hawks and eagles and owls until their wild faces seemed to be staring into mine, and I knew myself as wild as they. It sang the minor chords of pain and sickness, of injury and old age; for a few moments I felt I was an old woman with age heavy upon me. "
― Monica Furlong , Wise Child (Doran #1)
11 " How did I discover saccharin? Well, it was partly by accident and partly by study. I had worked a long time on the compound radicals and substitution products of coal tar... One evening I was so interested in my laboratory that I forgot about my supper till quite late, and then rushed off for a meal without stopping to wash my hands. I sat down, broke a piece of bread, and put it to my lips. It tasted unspeakably sweet. I did not ask why it was so, probably because I thought it was some cake or sweetmeat. I rinsed my mouth with water, and dried my moustache with my napkin, when, to my surprise the napkin tasted sweeter than the bread. Then I was puzzled. I again raised my goblet, and, as fortune would have it, applied my mouth where my fingers had touched it before. The water seemed syrup. It flashed on me that I was the cause of the singular universal sweetness, and I accordingly tasted the end of my thumb, and found it surpassed any confectionery I had ever eaten. I saw the whole thing at once. I had discovered some coal tar substance which out-sugared sugar. I dropped my dinner, and ran back to the laboratory. There, in my excitement, I tasted the contents of every beaker and evaporating dish on the table. "
12 " This tiny, white-washed Infants' room was a brief but cosy anarchy. In that short time allowed us we played and wept, broke things, fell asleep, cheeked the teacher, discovered things we could do to each other, and exhaled our last guiltless days.My desk companions were those two blonde girls, already puppyishly pretty, whose names and bodies were to distract and haunt me for the next fifteen years of my life. Poppy and Jo were limper chums; they sat holding hands all day; and there was a female self-possession about their pink sticky faces that made me shout angrily at them.Vera was another I studied and liked; she was lonely, fuzzy and short. I felt a curious compassion for stumpy Vera; and it was through her, and no beauty, that I got into trouble and received the first public shock of my life. How it happened was simple, and I was innocent, so it seemed. She came up to me in the playground one morning and held her face close to mine. I had a stick in my hand, so I hit her on the head with it. Her hair was springy, so I hit her again and watched her mouth open up with a yell. To my surprise a commotion broke out around me, cries of scandal from the older girls, exclamations of horror and heavy censure mixed with Vera's sobbing wails. I was intrigued, not alarmed, that by wielding a beech stick I was able to cause such a stir. So I hit her again, without spite or passion, then walked off to try something else. "
13 " Pen and paper have been my life, now they may herald my death. But I asked for these, the traditional tools of my trade, and to my surprise my request has been granted. "
14 " As a professional speaker, my facial expressions are essential for effectively telling stories, engaging audiences, fostering involvement, and connecting on a personal level. One day I decided to get Botox in my forehead to erase a few wrinkles and signs of aging. Much to my surprise and disappointment, I could no longer raise my eyebrows. My face was stuck in a heavy-browed expression, which is the polar-opposite of my joyful spirit and enthusiastic nature. It makes a funny story, but it taught me that authenticity wins over vanity any day! "
― Susan C. Young , The Art of Body Language: 8 Ways to Optimize Non-Verbal Communication for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #3)
