Shock Quotes

The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock - shock is a worn-out word - but astonish. (Terry Southern)
Each day a few more lies eat into the seed with which we are born, little institutional lies from the print of newspapers, the shock waves of television, and the sentimental cheats of the movie screen. View quote
Norman Mailer
Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate. View quote
Bertrand Russell
There are persons who, when they cease to shock us, cease to interest us. View quote
F. H. Bradley
I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious views of anyone. View quote
Charles Darwin
There is, though, nothing that prepares us for the worst things in our life. There is nothing you can do to stop the shock, or buffer the pain. View quote
James Frey
Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock. View quote
James Baldwin
But when I first got cancer, after the initial shock and the fear and paranoia and crying and all that goes with cancer - that word means to most people ultimate death - I decided to see what I could do to take that negative and use it in a positive way. View quote
Herbie Mann
One does not devote one's life in art to shock an audience. View quote
Richard Foreman
If you are in the job for glamour, you're in for the shock of your life. The media is a huge shark pool. View quote
Trisha Goddard
I begin my work under the effect of shock, which I can sense and which gets me on the run from reality... In any case, I need a starting point, even if it's just a speck of dust or a gleam of light. (Joan Miró)
Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy. View quote
George F. Kennan
Reminding people what in reality it is all about, giving them a theme on which to ponder, creating a shock within them, pulling them out of the delusion of non authenticity, enabling them to become aware of their true possibilities. View quote
Antoni Tàpies
Its all that the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up to date. View quote
George Bernard Shaw
Yes, I'm a homosexual and I like to shock people with glamour. View quote
Rufus Wainwright
Observation and theory get on best when they are mixed together, both helping one another in the pursuit of truth. It is a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in a theory until it has been confirmed by observation. I hope I shall not shock the experimental physicists too much if I add that it is also a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in the observational results that are put forward until they have been confirmed by theory. View quote
Arthur Eddington
Damien Hirst's Mother and Child Divided (1993) is a work which can at first glance be read as nothing more than two brutally severed carcasses. "A freak show" was how the art critic of the Sunday Telegraph responded to its presentation in the Turner Prize in 1995. For me, the undoubted shock, even disgust provoked by the work is part of its appeal. Art should be transgressive. Life is not all sweet. View quote
Nicholas Serota
One does not want glory accepted as a matter of course. One wants to shock and astonish people with it. View quote
Diana Wynne Jones
The human heart is not yet so corroded that it can read off the extinction of these two men without a shock to the very roots of its belief in justice and humanity. View quote
Katherine Anne Porter
Like the shock of fondling a raw sausage, blindfold, at a gay party ... View quote
Vivian Stanshall
I suppose the shock of recognition is one of the nastiest shocks of all. (Donna Tartt)
Sometimes I get so immersed in my own company, if I unexpectedly run into someone I know, it's a bit of a shock and takes me a while to adjust. View quote
Kazuo Ishiguro
For inspiration I look to those great players who consistently found original ways to shock their opponents. None did this better than the eighth world champion, Mikhail Tal. The "Magician of Riga" rose to become champion in 1960 at age twenty-three and became famous for his aggressive, volatile play. View quote
Garry Kasparov
Without a huge shock, the sleepy-head, ignorant Japanese will never wake up. View quote
Hiroo Onoda
Man has a limited biological capacity for change. When this capacity is overwhelmed, the capacity is in future shock. View quote
Alvin Toffler