Harper Lee Quotes

No one was more surprised that that first Boston record took off than the record company itself.

I, sort of, got into comedy accidentally, and it got bigger than I wanted it to.

I've had projects before where everyone says 'This is going to be the big thing,' and it doesn't really turn out to be. Then there is a little project you do and forget about, and then it comes out, and it's huge.

I had no idea that it was gonna take off the way it did. I thought we made a good movie.

For me, the biggest successes I've ever had were the ones I never counted on. I never thought my first big record would be a hit. I thought it was an average song.

The music I was making for people not to dance to was the one they were dancing to.

I was really surprised at the success of 'House of Sand and Fog,' because it is so awfully dark. Believe it or not, when writing it, I never had the word 'tragedy' in my head - I wasn't trying to write a dark book at all.

I feel like a hostage to fortune. Not that I am complaining. I wanted to play the role. But in truth I didn't think the show would be such a success. OK, I thought it would fail. Not because it was bad. I was confident it was good, but plenty of good things just sort of wither on the vine.

I've had the experience of having a book praised but then it doesn't sell. Or not praised but then it sells.

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.

You never know what's going to happen sometimes, or what you think's going to happen never happens, or when you least expect it, the Santana record comes along and just blows up.

Butterfly was certainly a vehicle for me, and if it died, it still would have served its purpose, in spades. We never expected it to give me the visibility it has given me. It was just a small thing as a vehicle, and suddenly the whole world knew about it.

The Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookie was an unexpected, unplanned pop culture phenomena. My father went from star-maker to star.

I assumed that 'Gone Girl' would do incrementally better than 'Dark Places,' and that would be great. So the fact that it did more than that was kind of an incredibly pleasant surprise.

The truth is, I hadn't grown up really wanting to be a writer. The whole thing was a weird aberration in some ways, and I didn't feel personally connected to the level of success I had with it - the success of sorts, I guess.

What's great about the way 'Shame''s been received is that I kept on thinking there's no way this film will be received well since I've had such a good time.

There was no way to predict that 'This is Us' was going to be what it is, that it would really resonate with people.

I really didn't think this was going to be a success. We did the first three episodes and I said to Adam, 'I can't see this going anywhere. I've already used up all my urban legends.'

It's strange to think about the scathing reviews 'Sigh No More' got and then consider that we could win best album a year or so later.

With Ghost, I never really foresaw that it was going to take off the way it did.

When we started off, we weren't even thinking of being a global band. We just ended up becoming that.

I couldn't have known 'Crank' was going to be published, let alone become a big hit. That book was very personal for me: I had to tell the story for myself.

'Paper Planes' was an accident. It wasn't a song we made for the masses. It took two years to get popular, and there were many fights about censoring the gunshot sounds.

I think I got really lucky with Slacker. That was a film that probably shouldn't have been seen.

So, it didn't do well. But now when I talk to kids who are first seeing it, they're surprised to hear the movie failed at the box office. Sometimes that's what happens.