A surprising number of people - including many students of literature - will tell you they haven't really lived in a book since they were children. Sadly, being taught literature often destroys the life of the books.
A. S. Byatt
People are obsessed with my haircut; everyone wants to do something with my hair before the ceremony. Very senior figures tell me their hairstylist wants to do my hair for free. It's surprising. People from television are interested almost exclusively in aspects of my hair and my hairdresser.
Ada Yonath
I want to work with intelligent people and look for scripts that I think are intelligent and surprising.
Adam Brody
You can learn more about anything, and the truth about almost anything is surprising.
Adam Conover
Chinese companies, in their well-capitalized, rapidly growing, and surprisingly lightly regulated markets, have become global innovation leaders.
Adam Lashinsky
My first world title fight, it surprisingly came so fast, but we knew it would come sooner or later.
Adrien Broner
The solution as consumers is - perhaps surprisingly - to take adverts very, very seriously. We should ask ourselves what it is that we find lovely in them - the visions of friendship, togetherness, repose, or whatever. And then consider what would actually help us find these qualities in our lives.
Alain de Botton
The death of marriage has been announced so often and would seem so normal, in a sense. So what's surprising is the sheer longevity and tenacity of this institution.
You think a lot of people get to be big stars and get a little crazy, but most of the ones I've ever met have always been surprisingly normal, and I've enjoyed that.
Alan Jackson
It would be wonderful to think that the future is unknown and sort of surprising.
Alan Rickman
I want to make beautiful paintings. But I don't make beautiful paintings by putting beautiful paint on a canvas with a beautiful motif. It just doesn't work. I expect my paintings to be strong and surprising.
Albert Oehlen
I had breathed in the atmosphere created by Henri Christophe, the monarch of incredible aims, much more surprising than all the kings invented by the surrealists.
Alejo Carpentier
I feel like my whole life, I've had to prove myself to so many people because I'm young and because I'm a female; it's just constant. I'm always surprising people.
Alessia Cara
Sometimes a sincere moment is the most surprising thing you can write.
Alex Hirsch
In life there is nothing more unexpected and surprising than the arrivals and departures of pleasure. If we find it in one place today, it is vain to seek it there tomorrow. You can not lay a trap for it.
Alexander Smith
What was especially surprising for me is that there are many people who view Sci-Hub as some kind of a tool to change the system. Like changing the system was a goal, and Sci-Hub was a tool to achieve it.
Alexandra Elbakyan
Embryology reveals surprising similarities between early embryos of seemingly quite different animals. And it also shows that some structures that may look very different later on have fundamental similarities in the way they form.
Alice Roberts
Everyone seems to be surprised that I've changed post-marriage. But what's so surprising about it? You must change; it's such a big turning point in your life.
Allu Arjun
From the moment my dad died, from the moment I found out there was the possibility of his dying, there were many surprises - years after, minutes after. The moments I was okay were as surprising as the ones that I wasn't. Making it through the eulogy without losing it. And then the guilt I felt about it. Surprise!
Alysia Reiner
In 1961, an official U.S. commission oversaw thousands of events to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the American Civil War. All 50 states joined in, but not surprisingly, the biggest events took place in the 11 southern states that made up the defeated Confederacy.
Amanda Foreman
A lot of politicians, not surprisingly, hire consultants to help them with their nonverbals, presence, generally how they come across.
I had a mother I could only seem to please with verbal accomplishments of some sort or another. She read constantly, so I read constantly. If I used words that might have seemed surprising at a young age, she would recognize that and it would please her.
I thought that my movie career was finished. I was quite happy to dedicate myself 100% to the theater. Surprisingly enough, I've never gotten so many work offers. It's so exciting, this feeling of a new beginning after 40.
One of the accidental joys of my writing life has been that I've had some lovely, surprisingly good fortune with readers, and I've brought readers to my dad's work. I can't tell you the joy that gives me. Because my father's work was masterful.
It is difficult to think of a major industry that AI will not transform. This includes healthcare, education, transportation, retail, communications, and agriculture. There are surprisingly clear paths for AI to make a big difference in all of these industries.
No one much wants to be belittled, but we tolerate slurs surprisingly often for ourselves; for our lionised children, we demand freedom from insult.
We've got fuel prices coming down and good travel numbers coming out, so it's not surprising airline stocks are going up.
If you look at my life before I went into television, the struggle I went through coming out would be surprising to most people, given how comfortable and how out I am being the only late-night gay talk-show host.
Rugby has surprisingly helped me a lot as an astronaut and when I'm training in the space suit.
Even with a stable character, you want something surprising to happen, hopefully because that's what the camera loves the most. That's what is great about film.
The tension I feel is the moment they say, 'Action!' Movies are like lightning in a bottle, and you always want to find when you possibly can catch a surprising moment.
I was interested in transcendence from a very early age. I was interested in what was over there, what was behind life. So when I had my first communion I was very disappointed. I had expected something amazing and surprising and spiritual. Instead all I got was a bicycle. That wasn't what I was after at all.
Rather than highlighting music's differences, Kids & Explosions' Josh Raskin mixes songs together based on their surprising common ground, making them blend rhythmically and melodically.
No one reaches the Oval Office without a great deal of admiration for the institution - and himself - so it's unsurprising that sitting presidents favor the biographies of former presidents.
The concentration in my book on Marie Antoinette's childhood and on her family influences. It is surprising how some books actually start with her arrival in France!
Every country has its own perspective on the Second World War. This is not surprising when experiences and memories are so different.
I got scouted when I was 16, almost 17, and it was something that had never entered my thoughts. I never thought I could be a model. I was such a tomboy growing up, and I've never really been into makeup or anything like that, so it was really surprising, but I definitely saw it as an in for acting.
I'm a surprisingly good rapper.
I guess the most surprising discovery was how long Gandhi remained loyal to the ideal of the British Empire, even in India.
Students come away with a clear message about how admissions works: If you have money, connections or 'insider' knowledge, you have a leg up. It's hardly surprising that many students of modest or lower means decide it's not even worth playing.
In the end, granting mercy comes down to just two people. For the recipient, the pardon is freedom. For the politician, the pardon can mean - not surprisingly - political gain.
Here is the surprising truth: It's often easier to make something 10 times better than it is to make it 10 percent better.
Don't show off every day, or you'll stop surprising people. There must always be some novelty left over. The person who displays a little more of it each day keeps up expectations, and no one ever discovers the limits of his talent.
It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
The fact that my 15 minutes of fame has extended a little longer than 15 minutes is somewhat surprising to me and completely baffling to my wife.
It's surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.
Melrose is the finest remaining specimen of Gothic architecture in Scotland. Some of the sculptured flowers in the cloister arches are remarkably beautiful and delicate, and the two windows - the south and east oriels - are of a lightness and grace of execution really surprising.
I'd like to think I'm ambitious, and I like proving people wrong and surprising people.
As for my diet, I try to eat lean, clean and healthy - nothing too surprising. And I avoid too much meat or dairy because they slow you down.
The firing of Kevin Williamson from 'The Atlantic' on the day he was set to give an opening Q&A in their offices was sadly unsurprising given the pattern of these types of hires.
