The whole rise of new adult contemporary music and smooth jazz was a nice surprise.
I thought, after the Pulitzer, at least nothing will surprise me quite that much in my life. And another one happened. It was quite amazing.
I have the 'thing' worked out - the trick or the surprise or the pivotal fact. Then I just start somewhere and let the story work itself out.
I have received the greatest honor in my life - and the greatest surprise. Never did I dream that the Nobel Prize could be awarded for the reciprocal relations.
The biggest surprise, which is also the best, is that I didn't know I would love motherhood as much as I do.
Whoever can surprise well must conquer.
These days, I like to think of sentences as workers. Only one of their jobs is to look and sound good. Sentences are the carriers of plot. They're the conjurers of images, the conveyors of tone and meaning and voice. The best sentences surprise us.
I've been acting for 27 years, and anonymity has always been a part of what I do. Of course you get recognised every now and again, but 'Homeland' pushed me into a completely different strata, and that took me by surprise.
'Harlem: The Unmaking of a Ghetto' is a surprise and a fresh way of looking at Harlem, connecting the black district with the architecture of its historical past.
None of us know all the potentialities that slumber in the spirit of the population, or all the ways in which that population can surprise us when there is the right interplay of events.
I grew up on movie sets, so it was something I just found familiar. When I was growing up also, in high school, I would audition for things and my parents let me audition for things - with the thought that I wouldn't get them. And then I would get them... sometimes, and it would surprise them.
For me, running a set and directing has been the most rewarding thing of my life and a happy surprise, because it was never really on my radar.
Nothing surprises me. One thing I don't ever have in my world is surprise.
I had a novel in the back of my mind when I won an Ian St James story competition in 1993. At the award ceremony an agent asked me if I was writing a novel. I showed her four or five chapters of what would become 'Behind the Scenes at the Museum' and to my surprise she auctioned them off.
With every project, there are things that surprise you with the meaning they take on as you start to use them.
It's all about creation and surprise. It just needs to be appreciated and watered like flowers. You have to water flowers. These peaks will come again.
I really, really thought that it was a no-brainer in terms of being a hit. And so it does surprise that that hasn't been the manifested reception of it so far.
And it is very sexy as well: somebody says I'm taking you on a surprise date, you don't know where you are going and you can't see and then you put your hand out and there is a tiger. Amazing.
We are often too late with our brilliance. We are on time delay. The only instant gratification comes in the form of potato chips. The rest will find us by surprise somewhere down the road maybe as we sleep and dream of other things.
When I was working on the al-Zawahiri piece, a large part of it published in 'The New Yorker' in 2002, I had spoken to a lot of Zawahiri's friends, people who had been in prison with him, people that had been in al-Jihad with him. And quite to my surprise, they liked that article a lot.
When I did 'Bird,' it was a surprise to some people, first because I wasn't in it and second because most of the films I'd been doing were cop movies or westerns or adventure films, so to be doing one about Charlie Parker, who was a great influence on American music, was a great thrill for me.
I do feel pressure. I have always been able to surprise people because they didn't know to expect anything from me. And now people are starting to have expectations.
I personally take cues directly from the script, then I like to surprise the other actors. But you must maintain control on a level and see how far you can go up, down or out emotionally. You have to balance the craft with spontaneity.
'Tum Jo Mile' came as a surprise. Vivek and Kumaar sir, who has written the song, sent me the track just to listen. I was in London at the time for my world tour. I heard the song, and I fell in love with it instantly.
The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless. It is a pleasant surprise to ourselves.
When I think people like one record more than the other, then someone will surprise me.
Clearly, those of us women who play football wish that there was more coverage. But it's one of those things that happens. Every year the level is getting higher, and I think we surprise a lot of people when the world focuses its attention on the World Cup or the Olympics final.
Jazz and poetry both involve a structure that may be familiar and to some extent predictable. And then, you try to create as much surprise and spontaneity and feeling and variation while respecting that structure.
For me, the short story is the depth of a novel, the breadth of a poem, and, as you come to the last few paragraphs, the experience of surprise.
See, the SAG awards caught me totally by surprise.
Detroit is drunken idiots. It was no surprise to me. I performed with Kenny Rogers for one year as his opening act, and I got to visit every major American city and notice the audience, and Detroit was one of the worst.
Don't ever put anything past kids. They will surprise you in the best ways.
It doesn't matter to me if it has a surprise ending or not. I usually go for the material or the project.
Wait long enough, and people will surprise and impress you.
A nice blend of prediction and surprise seem to be at the heart of the best art.
Whatever extra there is in me at any given moment isn't fully formed. I am hardly aware of it; it awaits the next book. It will - with luck - come to me during the actual writing, and it will take me by surprise.
