An unexpected benefit of my career in biochemistry has been travel.
I've always associated the moment of writing with a moment of lift, of joy, of unexpected reward.
I've always tried to control everything and every aspect of my life, and this is maybe the biggest lesson I've learnt with motherhood - you just can't control everything, and I'm much more relaxed now about unexpected changes and things that happen.
As for design, I gravitate to traditional styles but mix it with an element of surprise. Whether it's a big sash bow in the back or an unexpected fabric, it all needs to work together.
Americans' addiction to sports, with the NFL at the top, is based on the excitement generated by the potential for the unexpected great play which can only happen with honest competition from great athletes.
The promise of energy savings, reduced carbon emissions and affordable lighting was there from the inception. The proliferation of the technology into areas such as displays, automotive, medicine and horticulture was unexpected.
One day I looked at something in myself that I had been avoiding because it was too painful. Yet once I did, I had an unexpected surprise. Rather than self-hatred, I was flooded with compassion for myself because I realized the pain necessary to develop that coping mechanism to begin with.
I like beautiful writing, pain, unexpected humor, and the message that, at the last second, people are going to be kind to each other. It almost doesn't matter what the genre is.
Everyone's opened a drawer and been startled by the unexpected discovery of an old mobile phone that now resembles an outsized pantomime prop. To think you used to be impressed by this clunky breezeblock. You were like a caveman gawping at a yo-yo.
I like roles that bring the unexpected. Roles that may challenge the way people think about things and perceive things. And I like roles that reflect a reality.
I haven't heard anything or seen anything out there that would lead me to believe that all of a sudden there's an unexpected drop in PCs.
In terms of negotiating a career - I've always grown up being an insider and an outsider to different worlds, across different classes and cultures, so I have always naturally liked making films or music that puts things in unexpected places.
Life just doesn't care about our aspirations, or sadness. It's often random, and it's often stupid and it's often completely unexpected, and the closures and the epiphanies and revelations we end up receiving from life, begrudgingly, rarely turn out to be the ones we thought.
If you want to see that human story unfold, if you want to understand that only the unexpected life is worth a damn, spend some time with 46 years of Lou Reed's work: music that leaped and then looked. Safety is for the godless and the faithless.
I've said it before about the Nobel Prize: it's like being struck by a more or less benign avalanche. It was unexpected, unlooked for, and extraordinary.
It's always better to shock people and change people's expectations than to give them exactly what they think you can do. It's not unexpected for me to be in a comedy film anymore; I'm no longer the underdog in that world. Not that I'm great or good at it or anything, it's just that I've done a bunch of them, so you're not shocked.
I'm attracted to ensembles: you get a lot of really good moving pieces. It's sort of like a horse race in a way, especially when you know that everyone is on this collision course. It's like, 'Who's going to make it?' And you can put people together in unexpected pairings.
I've learned some quick tricks about how to fix my hair so I can dash somewhere unexpected and still be O.K. when someone stops me to take a picture.
I think there's definitely a way to tell a story, to also look at marriages that are working, but find drama from what's challenging them. That's what I think, certainly, 'Parenthood' is kind of about: the unexpected things that come up in your life that challenge you as a man, as a woman, as a husband and a wife, and as a parent.
Feelings come at really unexpected moments to all of us, and they come so fast.
It turns out that a Nobel is also followed by other recognitions, and perhaps the most unexpected of these is that the Japan Karate Association in Tokyo has now made me an honorary 7th-degree black belt, something that, given my athletic abilities, is even more unimaginable than being an Economic Sciences Laureate.
In her previous novels, Maggie O'Farrell has often measured the distance between intimates and the unexpected intimacy of distance - geographic, temporal, cultural. In 'The Hand That First Held Mine' and 'The Distance Between Us,' characters separated by many miles or many years turn out to be joined in ways they never anticipated.
My life was very tenuous last year. My daughter's death, in March in 2007, was unexpected. It was a shock. I didn't know if I'd survive it.
Journalists often ask me when I go to the field, 'What do you expect to find?' And my answer always is, 'The unexpected,' because we're just looking at the tip of the iceberg; we've just scratched the surface.
As a writer, I try to appeal to the 'elusive boy audience' the same way I try to appeal to everyone: I do the very best I can to create interesting characters, addictive plots, tons of conflict, believable settings, unexpected plot twists, intriguing beginnings, and satisfying endings.
Nothing to me is unexpected. No disappointment is unexpected - whether it's movies or people or relationships. I'm always ready for the punch directly between the eyes. So I get hurt, but I never get hurt. Happens all the time.
Teaching is a very effective way to get children to learn something specific - this tube squeaks, say, or a squish then a press then a pull causes the music to play. But it also makes children less likely to discover unexpected information and to draw unexpected conclusions.
On the whole, when the unexpected danger happens to you, you're thinking so fast, you're thinking so hard, every bit of you is alive to 'What should I do?' 'What can I do?' There isn't a lot of time for contemplation.
I many times encountered courage, real courage. Undeniable courage. I've heard it said that that was the highest quality of the human animal. I encountered that many times, in unexpected places. And I have learned to recognize it when I see it.
I tend to see my characters from inside and outside at once; this is a technique I use to retain a slight distance. It means my characters can act in unexpected ways on two axes: physical and mental. It isn't just, 'I thought this and then I did this,' which is the technique of the modern psychological novel.
It was a unique childhood, to say the least. My father was born in Patiala to refugee parents and was a part of the Indian Air Force. The talented few amongst the Air Force pilots are made test pilots. Test pilots are best suited to look at the space programme as they are trained to expect the unexpected.
You travel with the hope that something unexpected will happen. It has to do with enjoying being lost and figuring it out and the satisfaction. I always get a little disappointed when I know too well where I'm going, or when I've lived in a place so long that there's no chance I could possibly get lost.
There are certain sorts of jokes which have only to do with the substitution of the unexpected word in a familiar context. If you translated something into French and then had it translated back into English by somebody who didn't know the original, you'd lose what was funny.
There are parts of the Earth that are covered with pollution all the time. I saw weather that was unexpected. Storms bigger than we've seen in the past. This is a human effect. This is not a natural phenomenon.
We try to keep audiences coming back in greater numbers by doing the unexpected and not simply following a pattern or a mold or a formula.
For me personally, the technology that has taken the most unexpected turn in my lifetime is what I refer to as 'the device formerly known as the cell phone.' I still remember many predictions that by 2000 there would only be about a million cell phone users. Boy, were they ever wrong!