The only way to go on holiday is with your expectations at ground level. Convince yourself before you go that the weather's going to be dreadful and there will be nylon sheets. You'll then be pleasantly surprised.
Holidays in general breed unrealistic expectations. The minute you start wondering, 'is it going to be wonderful enough?,' it never will be.
I will try to disappoint you better than anyone ever has.
There's a very curious and - and almost sadistic lust for blood that overcomes the concert listener, and there's a waiting for it to happen: a waiting for the horn to fluff; a waiting for the strings to become ragged; a waiting for the conductor to forget the subdivide, you know? And it's dreadful!
Whenever anything nice happens in the world I always expect something appalling to happen immediately afterwards.
The future is the worst thing about the present.
Any degree of success or achievement for me is only ever a relief. My version of getting carried away is: 'Mmm, that wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.'
I've always done the safest thing, which is to assume that it's going to feel like that, to assume that you're going to feel like a freshman in a group of seniors - if you expect the worst, then it's never going to be that bad.
I would assume that you were going to offer me refreshment, but the evidence so far suggests that that would be optimistic to the point of foolishness.
I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than fatally disappointed.
I don't really think about dance except just before rehearsals start. I put it off. I don't live my life thinking about dance.
I go into a movie sort of saying what it's not going to be.
I don't always expect good from people. I always expect the bad and I am pleasantly surprised when they are nice.
I believe passionately in preemptive pessimism, especially before a book comes out. I expect the worst both from reviewers and sales, and then, with any luck, I may be proved wrong.
I'm not a birthday person. Maybe because I don't like to build expectations around that one day. You never know how it'll turn out to be.
I was really good in high school, so in college I was going to be really bad.
I can never enjoy Sundays, because in the back of my mind I always know I've got to go to school the next day. It's like trying to enjoy your last meal before the execution.
