Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Quotes

The only thing that should astonish us is that anything can yet astonish us.

There are very few things that surprise me.

Oh, there's nothing like getting used to things.

I'm always shocked by what people react to.

Great things astonish us, and small dishearten us. Custom makes both familiar.

I conduct my life with an expectation that people will do the right thing. Yet even with all my experience, I am still surprised when they do not.

I got used to being a writer. To compare it to teaching - I taught for twenty-five years; for the first two or three years it was heady. I was discovering that I could do something and do it well. Be useful to people. It was exhilarating, sort of like the first two weeks of being in love with somebody, and then it becomes like the third bite of pizza. The first bite is wonderful. The second bite is not disappointing. The third? Meh. You get used to it.

I don't know why it surprises people that I surprise them.

People never know what they want, though everyone says they do. If they did, nobody would ever be surprised.

As a general rule, people disappoint you as you know them.

Wonder is from surprise, and surprise stops with experience.

Wait long enough, and people will surprise and impress you.

I think we're tremendously different than the series, if they were to tune in to the series after seeing the movie they might be disappointed. That there was, you know, that they might have some kind of adverse reaction.

You have to study the people and the ones that measure up are not always the ones you expect.

People never cease to amaze me.

Nothing surprises me. One thing I don't ever have in my world is surprise.

You do not notice changes in what is always before you.

There are no conditions of life to which a man cannot get accustomed, especially if he sees them accepted by everyone around him.

Though it might sound quaint, there was a time when people could be astonished.

If nothing else, we simply get used to being alive.

Here's the deal: the extraordinary becomes ordinary really quickly. One minute, everything is new and amazing, the next it's expected.

Now, when you've been in the band for three years, you get used to the position, in a sense. I don't think about it every day like, 'Oh my God, I'm the singer of Nightwish!'

I want people to be surprised.

I know what a full season is like in the big leagues. It's not going to be a surprise anymore.

Always the tone of surpise.