What A Great Surprise Quotes

To depart without giving a reason why is to leave a curse on those you leave behind. Questions linger: Why didn't i realize something was wrong? What could I have done differently? Was it my fault? And, of course, the dead don't reply. So there's basically no way to lift the curse. Time is a great healer, but an imperfect one, as anyone who has ever been assaulted in the dead of night by uneasy, shameful feelings knows. Even those memories consigned to oblivion by the conscious mind may still be in there somewhere, lurking, never completely forgotten by the unconscious mind. ~ Project Itoh

Negative identity is a phenomenon whereby you define yourself by what you are not. This has enormous advantages, especially in terms of the hardening of psychological boundaries and the fortification of the ego: one can mobilize a great deal of energy on this basis and the new nation [the US] certainly did ... The downside ... is that this way of generating an identity for yourself can never tell you who you actually are, in the affirmative sense. It leaves, in short, an emptiness at the center, such that you always have to be in opposition to something, or even at war with someone or something, in order to feel real. ~ Morris Berman

Vain men delight in telling what Honours have been done them, what great Company they have kept, and the like; by which they plainly confess, that these Honours were more than their Due, and such as their Friends would not believe if they had not been told: Whereas a Man truly proud, thinks the greatest Honours below his Merit, and consequently scorns to boast. I therefore deliver it as a Maxim that whoever desires the Character of a proud Man, ought to conceal his Vanity. ~ Jonathan Swift

I was sufficiently recovered from my nervous condition – or else the booze was beginning to work – to be able to discuss with Rudi the merits of checked or striped trousers, which had been the great debate among the London nobs that year. I was a check-er myself, having the height and leg for it, but Rudi thought they looked bumpkinish, which only shows what damned queer taste they had in Austria in those days. Of course, if you'll put up with Metternich you'll put up with anything. ~ George MacDonald Fraser

I have bad news for you, for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.

In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black--considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible--you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization--black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another.

Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.
For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult ti ~ Robert F. Kennedy

The young man looked at her a moment. 'You are very much changed,' he said.
'I am glad to hear it,' Gertrude declared.
'I am not. I have known you a long time, and I have loved you as you were.'
'I am much obliged to you,' said Gertrude. 'I must be going home.'
He, on his side, gave a little laugh. 'You certainly do avoid me - you see!'
'Avoid me, then.' said the girl.
He looked at her again; and then, very gently, 'No, I will not avoid you,' he replied; 'but I will leave you, for the present, to yourself. I think you will remember - after a while - some of the things you have forgotten. I think you will come back to me; I have great faith in that.'
This time his voice was very touching; there was a strong reproachful force in what he said, and Gertrude could answer nothing. He turned away and stood there, leaning his elbows on the gate and looking at the beautiful sunset. Gertrude left him and took her way home again; but when she reached the middle of the next field she suddenly burst into tears. Her tears seemed to her to have been a long time gathering, and for some moments it was a kind of glee to shed them. But they presently passed away. There was something a little hard in Gertrude; and she never wept again. ~ Henry James

As I approach a new project, my process always begins with the question: what is it about? Here's one answer that might apply to a Star Trek movie...

I want it to be about the most horrible, treacherous aliens ever known to man who are about to destroy life as we know it, leading to the most spectacular thrill ride of an adventure with fantastic space battles and huge explosions and great special effects -- a white knuckle ride for the movie audience.

Yeah, but what's it about?

I can write space battles with the best of them, but what makes that space battle interesting to me is: why are they fighting? What are the stakes? What does the hero lose if he loses? And what does he win if he wins? Why should we care?

I'm talking about the second level of story-telling. The level that examines what's going on inside the characters - their moral and ethical dilemmas, their doubts, fears, inner conflicts, how they change as the story progresses. These are the things that make us, as members of an audience, get emotionally involved. ~ Michael Piller

Moynihan, when he was ambassador to the United Nations, produced the same effect when he attacked the Third World. These attacks aroused great admiration here; for example, when he denounced Idi Amin of Uganda as a "racist murderer." The question is not whether Idi Amin is a racist murderer. No doubt the appellation is correct. The question is, what does it mean for Moynihan to make this accusation and for others to applaud his honesty and courage in doing so? Who is Moynihan? He served in four administrations, those of Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford - that is to say, administrations that were guilty of racist murder on a scale undreamed of by Idi Amin. Imagine that some minor functionary of the Third Reich had correctly accused someone of being a racist murderer. ~ Noam Chomsky

I think the Messianic concept, which is the Jewish offering to mankind, is a great victory. What does it mean? It means that history has a sense, a meaning, a direction; it goes somewhere, and necessarily in a good direction
the Messiah. ~ Elie Wiesel

I think the secret of great acting is that you have to bring your imagination to the party. You have to have a great imagination and you have to bring it every day when you're working. Your imagination and your skills as an actor are what see you through, not what you're wearing or where you are. ~ Steven Spielberg

I don't think I am green. It's true I only know what I've read in books, but I've read a great many books ~ Georgette Heyer

The Heiligenstadt Testament"

Oh! ye who think or declare me to be hostile, morose, and misanthropical, how unjust you are, and how little you know the secret cause of what appears thus to you! My heart and mind were ever from childhood prone to the most tender feelings of affection, and I was always disposed to accomplish something great. But you must remember that six years ago I was attacked by an incurable malady, aggravated by unskillful physicians, deluded from year to year, too, by the hope of relief, and at length forced to the conviction of a lasting affliction (the cure of which may go on for years, and perhaps after all prove impracticable).

Born with a passionate and excitable temperament, keenly susceptible to the pleasures of society, I was yet obliged early in life to isolate myself, and to pass my existence in solitude. If I at any time resolved to surmount all this, oh! how cruelly was I again repelled by the experience, sadder than ever, of my defective hearing! - and yet I found it impossible to say to others: Speak louder; shout! for I am deaf! Alas! how could I proclaim the deficiency of a sense which ought to have been more perfect with me than with other men, - a sense which I once possessed in the highest perfection, to an extent, indeed, that few of my profession ever enjoyed! Alas, I cannot do this! Forgive me therefore when you see me withdraw from you with whom I would so gladly mingle. My misfortune is doubly severe from ~ Ludwig Van Beethoven

The spy genre is something I loved.It also extends to the bad guy because I think, to me, what I love the most about the spy genre is when you have a great bad guy. What makes a great bad guy, to me, is the logic. What he's about has to make sense to me, that if I was in his shoes, yeah, right, that makes sense. ~ John Lasseter

To stay a great singer or guitar player, you've got to do it 24/7. That's what I do. ~ Sammy Hagar

For what can give a finer example of that frankness and manly self- confidence which our great public schools, and none of them so much as Eton, are supposed to inspire, of that buoyant ease in holding up one's head, speaking out what is in one's mind, and flinging off all sheepishness and awkwardness, than to see an Eton assistant-master offering in fact himself as evidence that to combine boarding-house- keeping with teaching is a good thing, and his brother as evidence that to train and race little boys for competitive examinations is a good thing? ~ Matthew Arnold

I love being married more than anyone. It's what I always wanted. I found the person who's perfect for me, and we have a great time and a great partnership. ~ Rebecca Gayheart

Did you seriously jerk off just now?" I demand.

He nods as if it's no biggie. "What, you think I can sit through a whole movie with blue balls?"

I gawk at him. "So you can't have sex with anyone while I'm in the house, but you can go upstairs and do that?"

A wolfish grin stretches his mouth. "I could've done it down here, but then you would've been too tempted to take over for me. I was trying to be nice."

It's hard not to roll my eyes. So I don't bother fighting the urge. "Trust me, I would have kept my hands to myself."

"With my cock right there in the open? No way. You wouldn't be able to help yourself." He arches a brow. "I have a great cock. ~ Elle Kennedy

Gibran says: Once I asked such a scarecrow, "I can understand the farmer who made you - he needs you. I can understand the poor animals - they don't have great intelligence to see that you are bogus. But in the rain, in the sun, in the hot summer, in the cold winter, you remain standing here: for what?" And the scarecrow said, "You don't know my joy. Just to make those animals afraid is such a joy that it is worth suffering rain, suffering sun, suffering heat, winter, everything. I am making thousands of animals afraid! I know I am bogus, there is nothing inside me, but I don't care about that. My joy is in making others afraid." I want to ask you: Would you like to be just like this bogus man - nothing inside, making somebody afraid, making somebody happy, making somebody humiliated, making somebody respectful? Is your life only for others? Will you ever look inside? ~ Osho

Love implies great freedom - not to do what you like. But love comes only when the mind is very quiet, disinterested, not self-centered. These are not ideals. If you have no love, do what you will - go after all the gods on earth, do all the social activities, try to reform the poor, the politics, write books, write poems - you are a dead human being. And without love your problems will increase, multiply endlessly. And with love, do what you will, there is no risk; there is no conflict. Then love is the essence of virtue. And a mind that is not in a state of love is not a religious mind at all. And it is only the religious mind that is freed from problems, and that knows the beauty of love and truth. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

We all know, the ones who play golf, know what a wonderful game it is and what a great past-time it is. ~ Bernhard Langer

With me, it's so eclectic and all over the map that no one knows what to expect, ... It may not be a great career move, but all these things - singing with the Funk Brothers and the Dead, singing a Dolly Parton song - is great. I'm welcome to all these different worlds, and that's been wonderful. ~ Joan Osborne

What happened at Hiroshima was not only that a scientific breakthrough had occurred and that a great part of the population of a city had been burned to death, but that the problem of the relation of the triumphs of modern science to the human purposes of man had been explicitly defined. ~ Archibald MacLeish

In 1914, Thomas Edison, at age sixty-seven, lost his factory to fire. It had very little insurance. No longer a young man, Edison watched his lifetime effort go up in smoke and said, "There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burnt up. Thank God we can start anew." In spite of disaster, three weeks later, he invented the phonograph. What an attitude! ~ Shiv Khera

I'm a great reader of history. I love - I have been reading history since I was a kid, and learning the lessons globally of what happened with people. ~ Warren Mundine

Humility is a virtue that is enjoined upon us. So far as the artist is concerned, with good reason; indeed, when he compares what he has done with what he wanted to do, when he compares his disappointing efforts with the great masterpieces of the world, he finds it the easiest of virtues to practice. Unless he is humble he cannot hope to improve. Self-satisfaction is fatal to him. The strange thing is that we are embarrassed by humility in others. We are ill at ease when they humble themselves before us. I don't know why this should be unless it is that there is something servile in it which offends our sense of human dignity. When I was engaging two coloured maids to look after me the overseer of the plantation who produced them, as a final recommendation, said: 'They're good niggers, they're humble.' Sometimes when one of them hides her face with her fingers to speak to me or with a little nervous giggle asks if she can have something I've thrown away, I'm inclined to cry: 'For heaven's sake don't be so humble.'
Or is it that humility in others forces upon us the consciousness of our own unworthiness? ~ W. Somerset Maugham

I thought I was in love with Leola, by which I meant that if I could have found her in a quiet corner, and if I had been certain that no one would ever find out, and if I could have summoned up the courage at the right moment, I would have kissed her. But, looking back on it now, I know that I was in love with Mrs Dempster. Not as some boys are in love with grown-up women, adoring them from afar and enjoying a fantasy life in which the older woman figures in an idealized form, but in a painful and immediate fashion; I saw her every day, I did menial tasks in her house, and I was charged to watch her and keep her from doing foolish things. Furthermore, I felt myself tied to her by the certainty that I was responsible for her straying wits, the disorder of her marriage, and the frail body of the child who was her great delight in life. I had made her what she was, and in such circumstances I must hate her or love her. In a mode that was far too demanding for my age or experience, I loved her. ~ Robertson Davies

Sometimes I think my ability to concentrate is being nibbled away by the internet; other times I think it's being gulped down in huge, Jaws-shaped chunks. In those quaint days before the internet, once you made it to your desk there wasn't much to distract you. You could sit there working or you could just sit there. Now you sit down and there's a universe of possibilities – many of them obscurely relevant to the work you should be getting on with – to tempt you. To think that I can be sitting here, trying to write something about Ingmar Bergman and, a moment later, on the merest whim, can be watching a clip from a Swedish documentary about Don Cherry – that is a miracle (albeit one with a very potent side-effect, namely that it's unlikely I'll ever have the patience to sit through an entire Bergman film again).

Then there's the outsourcing of memory. From the age of 16, I got into the habit of memorising passages of poetry and compiling detailed indexes in the backs of books of prose. So if there was a passage I couldn't remember, I would spend hours going through my books, seeking it out. Now, in what TS Eliot, with great prescience, called "this twittering world", I just google the key phrase of the half-remembered quote. Which is great, but it's drained some of the purpose from my life.

Exactly the same thing has happened now that it's possible to get hold of out-of-print books instantly on the web. That's great too. But one of the side incentives to ~ Geoff Dyer

When people connect to my work, it makes me feel great. A lot of that stuff is really deep, and when I play something and people feel what I feel, and use it in important situations in their lives, like at weddings or funerals, that's so powerful. It means I can connect with them on an important level. ~ Xavier Rudd

I said to Mr. Pavarotti once ... a marvelous man and a great artist ... I said to him ... "Maestro, I'm having trouble closing out a note so that it's almost as thin as a butter knife ... finish it out quietly like that." I said, "I have trouble doing that. What do you think I should do?" He said, "Justa close up your mouth." That's all he said, and I fell on the floor. I thought he was gonna give me a dissertation. ~ Frank Sinatra

I don't shop by brand loyalty at all. I'm just drawn to what I like when I shop. I do like this brand called Tiger of Sweden a lot, though. They make great sportswear and tailoring. And Calvin Klein; big supporter of them as well. ~ Henrik Lundqvist

What makes this constant assessing and comparing so self-defeating is that we are often comparing our lives, our marriages, our families, and our communities to unattainable, media-driven visions of perfection, or we're holding up our reality against our own fictional account of how great someone else has it. Nostalgia is also a dangerous form of comparison. ~ Brene Brown

What Tim does is, he calls me and sends me the script. And then he sends me a drawing, an illustration of his image of me as the character. It's so great. ~ Danny DeVito

What do you think Orolo saw, when he looked out thus?" Fraa Jad asked. "He was a great appreciator of beauty and loved to look at the mountains from the starhenge," I said. "You think he saw beauty? That is a safe answer, since it is beautiful. But what was he thinking about? What connections did the beauty enable him to perceive?" "I couldn't possibly answer that." "Don't answer it. Ask it. ~ Neal Stephenson

Today at lunch the waiter told me that the soup of the day was "Beef and Human." And I was like, "What the shit?" He said he'd had some and it was "good but really heavy on the human." Victor was like, "That sounds great. I'll have a bowl of that," and I felt like I'd fallen into a Twilight Zone movie. But it turns out the waiter was saying "Beef and Cumin," which honestly sounds almost as gross. ~ Jenny Lawson

But I am a great pretender, sometimes so good at it that I convince myself that what I pretend is what is truly real. ~ Kameron Hurley