One event makes another: what we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens; and time can only prove which is most for our advantage
1st Earl of Beaconsfield
I think a game hits a high point when it provokes reactions the designer doesn't expect.
Unexpected results are the rule rather than the exception.
I never really set out to do anything in the charts with music. It came as a total surprise that I did, and it's fun.
Many a time from a bad beginning great friendships have sprung up.
Everyone is beatable, many things are possible in football. We have often seen this.
I've always known I would be a success, but I was surprised at the way it came.
I love to prove people wrong. They expect I'll sound a certain way when they see me, then they hear me and they can't believe it. I love that.
It's good to wander into the studio and walk out with something that's better than you'd imagined it to be. If everything was as you imagined it to be, it just wouldn't be as much fun.
The experiment of poetry, as far as I am concerned, happens when the poem carries you beyond where you could have reasonably expected to go.
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 know a lot of people weren't expecting 'BLACKSummers'Night' to be what it was, just like a lot of people weren't expecting 'Embrya' to be what it was. People will listen to what I've been a part of and see what I've done.
I'm always taken aback by things that are successful that I think are just crap, and then I'm completely surprised when things I do end up being successful because you walk into things and you never know... It's just really remarkable.
When my career took off it surprised me, I was only 22. To have that much success so fast, I just wasn't prepared.
I've surprised a lot of people, including myself, with my longevity.
It's the results that are surprising, even results where we've totally screwed up, and then learned something in the process, are the ones that stand out. Having our preconceptions overturned is actually thrilling for us.
It's a little counterintuitive to people, that doing what people don't expect ends up being what people do expect. But that is true of Mac.
This is a perverse thing, personally, but I would rather be in the cycle where people are underestimating us. It gives us latitude to go out and make big bets that excite and amaze people.
There's been so many stories throughout the league where teams have started off poorly and ended up in the Finals. Or teams starting out great and not making the playoffs.
In science, each new result, sometimes quite surprising, heralds a step forward and allows one to discard some hypotheses, even though one or two of these might have been highly favored.
I've been involved in some movies that I really thought were going to take off that didn't. And then I've thought, 'This movie's not going anywhere,' and it worked. The same thing with television shows.
On one of my last days at school, the headmaster said I would either end up in prison or become a millionaire. That was quite a startling prediction, but in some respects, he was right on both counts!
The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability, which for all practical, everyday purposes amounts to certainty; the new therefore always appears in the guise of a miracle.
I honestly didn't expect this much attention, but it just keeps happening so I must be doing something right.
Kevin's mind goes to extremely interesting places. Every time we get a script, I go, 'Oh my God, I really didn't see that coming'.
