117+ Best Surprise Quotes: Exclusive Selection

Surprise is an unexpected event. Profoundly inspirational surprise quotes will make you look at life differently and help you live a meaningful life.

If you’re searching for best quotes about happiness and top yoga quotes that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of top forgive yourself quotes, empowering simplicity quotes and famous life is what you make it quotes.

Famous Surprise Quotes

Each day holds a surprise. But only if we expect it can we see, hear, or feel it when it comes to us. Let’s not be afraid to receive each day’s surprise, whether it comes to us as sorrow or as joy It will open a new place in our hearts, a place where we can welcome new friends and celebrate more fully our shared humanity. — Henri Nouwen

What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be. — Ellen Burstyn

Would you like to know your future?
If your answer is yes, think again. Not knowing is the greatest life motivator.
So enjoy, endure, survive each moment as it comes to you in its proper sequence — a surprise. — Vera Nazarian

Sometimes we let life guide us, and other times we take life by the horns. But one thing is for sure: no matter how organized we are, or how well we plan, we can always expect the unexpected. — Brandon Jenner

If you do not expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is not to be reached by search or trail. — Heraclitus

The politics of surprise leads through the Gates of Astonishment into the Kingdom of Hope. — Max Lerner

Every day is a surprise. There are confirmations of an interconnectivity and synchronicity which inspire, titillate and confirm the inherent comedy of the universe. — Billy Zane

I think when you don’t know where you stand with someone, they can surprise you in their goodness and their badness, and that makes them human. — David Morrissey

The biggest surprise, which is also the best, is that I didn’t know I would love motherhood as much as I do. — Deborah Norville

When you put your characters in a dire situation, they often do things that surprise even you, so you have to go back and revise your original conception of who they are. — Hallie Ephron

Taken is a really difficult project because it was a big surprise for everybody. — Olivier Megaton

I once took the key off my girlfriend’s key ring so that I could surprise her when she got home. So I did this whole romantic setup in our bedroom with flowers and rose petals. She was so mad when she got home, but then when she walked in, she was so surprised. — Trey Songz

It must surprise people that I’m such a rap fan, but it’s true. Sometimes, just staying in, putting on some rap music, and letting loose is all I need to have a good time. — Phoebe Tonkin

In books by women and for women, it should come as no surprise that heroines are the heroes of the action, finding themselves, their power and their future through love. — Sarah MacLean

Visual surprise is natural in the Caribbean; it comes with the landscape, and faced with its beauty, the sigh of History dissolves. — Derek Walcott

Posterity makes the judgments. There are going to be a lot of surprises in store for everybody. — Irwin Shaw

The scientists often have more unfettered imaginations than current philosophers do. Relativity theory came as a complete surprise to philosophers, and so did quantum mechanics, and so did other things. — Robert Nozick

I hope it will come as no surprise that I have something to say. — Teresa Heinz

I never assumed I would have that commercial success, so it was a total surprise. And honestly, I never assumed that it would ever happen again. — Tracy Chapman

The benefit of the radio is, something beyond your realm of knowledge can surprise you, can enter your realm of knowledge. — Esperanza Spalding

It’s great to be a blonde. With low expectations it’s very easy to surprise people. — Pamela Anderson

I run a charity. If my name pops up in your call ID, chances are I’m about to ask you for something – money, free ad space, your first born. So it is probably no surprise that people often don’t take my calls. — Nancy Lublin

Passion surprises. One doesn’t search it. It can happen to you tomorrow. — Isabelle Adjani

To me, all success is a delightful surprise, since one can absolutely never predict it. — Julian Fellowes

Every now and then, a presidential candidate surprises us with a truly human and honest moment. — Ron Fournier

I do not personally agree with some of the positions that Mr. Gonzales has advocated, but that should come as no surprise, because I do not agree with many of the proposals made by the man who nominated him, President Bush. — Daniel Inouye

Acting in film, you know, I hear all the time, people say ‘You did so much better than I thought you would.’ So there’s an added element of surprise in film, different than in music. — T.I.

I doubt whether the world holds for any one a more soul-stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice-cream. — Heywood Broun

Always mystify, mislead and surprise the enemy if possible. — Stonewall Jackson

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. — Emily Watson

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. — Karen Thompson Walker

I had read the novel and I had heard David Lean was going to direct it – and it came as a surprise to me because American actors, if given the chance, can do style as well as anybody and speak as well as anybody. — Rod Steiger

I can honestly say – and it’s a big surprise to me – that I have never had a dream about being on the moon. — Neil Armstrong

I must say, to my great surprise and pleasure, I deeply loved making movies in the United States because of all the opportunities it gave me to work with people that I admire as artists. — Denis Villeneuve

It’s no surprise companies that quickly grow in value attract those who may want to also profit from the hard work of others. — Evan Spiegel

It is really no surprise that, in a media world that has been so compromised by an invasion of political partisans and inarticulate airheads with communications degrees, a fake journalist can seem more trustworthy than the real thing. — David Horsey

I used to have costumed characters come out, like SpongeBob. It’s just fun to make it into this minor event, just to surprise people and experiment and be weird and just have fun with it. I’ve done just the hour stand-up, and that’s fun, but the other stuff makes it fun for me and gives me something to react to and bounce off of. — Hannibal Buress

It doesn’t matter to me if it has a surprise ending or not. I usually go for the material or the project. — Donnie Wahlberg

Well, everything surprises me about the writing process because illustrating comes much more naturally to me than writing does. — Brian Selznick

They may turn out to be a great disappointment, or perhaps they may be full of enchanting surprises. — Mary Wesley

I really like it when you can step outside of what’s come before and find a surprise for the reader and find a surprise for yourself. — Dave Gibbons

The thing I have always tried to do is surprise people: to present them with something they didn’t expect. — Christopher Lee

I’m sure it came as no surprise to my friends and family when I became an illustrator and then a writer because, from about the age of five, I was one of those children who always had his nose in a book. — Philip Reeve

That soldiers do terrible things during wartime should not surprise us. — Nick Flynn

I’ve been around a long time, and life still has a whole lot of surprises for me. — Loretta Lynn

I never want to do the same things twice. I like surprises. — Audrey Tautou

That’s how you get surprises, because what movies are all about is surprises. — Peter Bart

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. — Gallagher

With every passing year, BEC proves that it still has surprises left for us. — Eric Allin Cornell

This may surprise you, but I was arrested in high school. — Pat Boone

Unforeseen surprises are the rule in science, not the exception. Remember: Stuff happens. — Leonard Susskind

It still surprises me when I find something in any North Carolina newspaper that isn’t mad at me about something. — Jesse Helms

I guess the biggest surprise I got going to Iran was that the Iranians really liked me as an American. — Elaine Sciolino

Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change. — Thomas Hardy

I got nominated for a Tony, which was a complete surprise. It was an experience that I will always cherish — Sanaa Lathan

See, the SAG awards caught me totally by surprise. — Patricia Clarkson

It was quite a surprise when I realized that with a single wormhole you could have time hook up towards the future or towards the past and that you can actually manipulate the wormhole and change how time hooked up. — Kip Thorne

A nice blend of prediction and surprise seem to be at the heart of the best art. — Wendy Carlos

My mum is incredibly leftwing, and my dad was quite rightwing – no surprise they didn’t stay together – and so I had two very conflicting political opinions as a child, neither of which I was interested in taking any notice of, being a sort of little reprobate. — Nick Love

This friend of mine said he was surprised to find that – I don’t think it’s quite a majority – a bigger percentage of actors are introverts than extroverts. It was a big surprise to him. Now, I know me, and I’ll do anything if I’m playing a character. Or anything that’s true to the character, anyway. But in real life I’m a little more withdrawn. — Jacki Weaver

Whatever precautions you take so the photograph will look like this or that, there comes a moment when the photograph surprises you. It is the other’s gaze that wins out and decides. — Jacques Derrida

I love the Coen brothers. They’re so brilliant, and they always surprise you in one way or another. ‘A Serious Man’ was awesome. I like stuff like that, that kind of throws you for a loop. It takes you on a journey that is unexpected. — Malin Akerman

Humor comes from the surprise release of some buried tension. — Lorrie Moore

Everybody knows a guillotine choke, and most know how to get to one. But if you can create a different way to get to that choke, then you’re going to surprise people. However, that will only happen one time, because once it gets used that one time, everyone will see that and start to train for it. — Bas Rutten

I find life so shocking in general. Everything about it surprises me. — Katherine Waterston

My life is so full of surprises, nothing surprises me any more. — Kim Wilde

Of course, I have given my engineers some headaches over the years, but they go with me. I have always wanted my buildings to be as light as possible, to touch the ground gently, to swoop and soar, and to surprise. — Oscar Niemeyer

Investigators have discovered that dogs can laugh, which can’t be too big of a surprise. — Tony Snow

The really good thing about ‘Sleepy Hollow’ is you have no idea who’s going to die when… But then equally, we showed in the pilot several people can come back to life, so you have no idea who’s going to come back. Death means very little in our Sleepy Hollow, so expect more surprise deaths and more surprise resurrections. — Tom Mison

I love to be scared. Not, ‘Hey, I think I smell smoke…’ scared, but creepy, paranoid, what’s-that-out-there-in-the-dark, ghost story scared. It’s no surprise that I was the girl who got invited to the slumber parties because I could be counted on to tell a tale to scare the bejesus out of you. — Libba Bray

We never really know what’s around the corner when we’re filming – what turn a story will take, what a character will do or say to surprise us, how the events in the world will impact our story. — Barbara Kopple

Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. — Alan Turing

There’s no longer any surprise in noting that China has grave environmental problems. — James Fallows

I know we can’t always know what medical surprises may happen during childbirth. But my hope is to go fully natural – no epidural, no interventions. — Danica McKellar

About myself I have no great illusions. I know what I am. I know what I’m good at. I know what I ain’t. I’m always hoping to surprise myself. But I do have a love of music and I do love to communicate it, and that’s the best I can do, really. And I can raise a good family, too. — Keith Richards

I had been told by so many people that I was going to be nominated, that I should be nominated, that there wasn’t any question about my being nominated. I don’t think it was a surprise. — Gloria Stuart

It is an endless procession of surprises. The expected rarely occurs and never in the expected manner. — Vernon A. Walters

A lot of my work is a matter of reacting to surprises in life. — Alexander Wang

I think one of the things that was a huge surprise to everyone with ‘Silence of the Lambs’ was that that was an Oscar-winning horror movie. It struck such a nerve with audiences that it was a very particular, special experience. — Bryan Fuller

‘The Good Wife’ was definitely the biggest surprise and gift that I’ve had in a long time, and that did come out of some other work that I had done. That whole adage of ‘work begets work’ actually worked in that case – it was at the very end of their first season that my character was first introduced. — Carrie Preston

It’s no surprise that I ended up in sportscasting. I lived this world with my father, Mike Storen. Dad was a sports executive for most of my childhood. — Hannah Storm

I don’t know why it surprises people that I surprise them. — Liz Phair

One thing that seems to surprise the studios is finding out later my willingness to audition. Under the right circumstances, I actually enjoy it very much. — Frank Welker

Which death is preferably to every other? ‘The unexpected’. — Julius Caesar

I don’t tell everyone my life history because if everyone knows your inside-leg measurement, how can you surprise them? — Penelope Wilton

Surprise is not humor. I think that there can be a fine line there. — Keegan-Michael Key

Wonder is from surprise, and surprise stops with experience. — Robert South

What surprises me most about God is that the creator of the universe should want a relationship with me. — Rick Warren

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. — Lee Child

Humor’s always been the problem of my work, hasn’t it? When working, I feel satisfied when I surprise myself. And when I surprise myself, I wind up laughing. — Kara Walker

I think it’s part of the responsibility of an artist to shock, to upset, to make people think differently, and to surprise people. And that’s where the good humor is, if there’s a surprise and there’s something unexpected. Something that’s not normal, not in the realm of general living expectations. — Bill Plympton

I worked half my life to be an overnight success, and still it took me by surprise. — Jessica Savitch

A Scout is never taken by surprise; he knows exactly what to do when anything unexpected happens. — Robert Baden-Powell

What’s great about bacteria is you have a surprise every day waiting for you because they’re so fast, they grow overnight. — Bonnie Bassler

Humor has to surprise us; otherwise, it isn’t funny. It’s a death knell for a writer to be labeled a humorist because then it’s not a surprise anymore. — Garrison Keillor

The feeling of insecurity is inimical to our sense of wellbeing, as it causes anxiety and stress, which harms our physical and mental health. It is no surprise then that, according to some surveys, workers across the world value job security more highly than wages. — Ha-Joon Chang

I find myself eating different kinds of chicken each and every day, even if it’s by surprise. — Ludacris

Comedy is surprises, so if you’re intending to make somebody laugh and they don’t laugh, that’s funny. — Norm MacDonald

The success of the storytellers – we’re only as good as what we can withhold from the audience. Aspects of surprise and letting things play out for the audience – it’s so much a part of their enjoyment. It’s one of the great things about working in the movies and being a great storyteller. — B. D. Wong

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. — Marta

It’s a trifle hard to surprise yourself with a story you’ve written. — Ed Greenwood

I wake up every morning and I surprise myself. I wake up to a new me. — Gina Carano

I like to surprise myself. I’ve always been attracted to projects where I don’t know how they’re going to turn out. — Terrence McNally

A reversal is just anything that’s a surprise. It’s a way of keeping the audience interested. — Tony Gilroy

I do not believe they’ve run out of surprises. — Larry Niven

Unexpected Surprise Quotes

• The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us.
• You’ve sweetened my life with a fabulous surprise birthday party. It’s one I will always remember.
• Friendship is the golden thread that ties the heart of all the world.
• Some people arrive and make such a beautiful impact on your life, you can barely remember what life was like without them.
• Birthdays are more enjoyable when friends and family are present at your surprise birthday party. Thank you for making mine joyous.
• Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.
• What a gorgeous birthday gift. I had my eyes on it for a long time. Thank you love for this.
• Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
• I love your gift more than anything. It was the most awesome surprise gift ever. Thank you so much, dear.
• If you have two friends in your lifetime, you’re lucky. If you have one good friend, you’re more than lucky.
• Your gifts were always thoughtful yet fun. This year you also run your legacy in this case. Thank you for the awesome gift. It makes me look forward to the next one.
• A good friend is like a four-leaf clover: hard to find and lucky to have.
• Thank you so much for giving your precious presence at my birthday party. Your gift was too cool. You make my birthday cool.
• There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.