#astonishment

This did not in any way alter her intention of accomplishing her mission; on the contrary; it seemed to her all the more desperately important now that she was almost certain, in her innermost heart, that her trip was a failure. Her attitude was not an astonishing one, since like many others she conceived of her life as separate from herself; the road was laid out always a little ahead of her by scared hands, and she walked down it without a question. This road, which was her life, would go on existing after her death, even as her death existed while she still lived. ↗

— Jane Bowles

#attitude

The way to do research is to attack the facts at the point of greatest astonishment. ↗

— Celia Green

#attack #facts #greatest #point #research

Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible. ↗

— Eugene Ionesco

#explanation #gateway #incomprehensible #only #separates

Egypt, the Egypt of antiquity, at a later time, exercised a mysterious fascination over me. I recognized a picture of it immediately, without hesitation and astonishment, in an illustrated magazine. ↗

— Pierre Loti

#astonishment #egypt #exercised #fascination #hesitation

Anthropology demands the open-mindedness with which one must look and listen, record in astonishment and wonder that which one would not have been able to guess. ↗

— Margaret Mead

#able #anthropology #astonishment #been #demands

I must be informed, that one of my great duties was, to obey the priests in all things; and this I soon learnt, to my utter astonishment and horror, was to live in the practice of criminal intercourse with them. ↗

— Maria Monk

#astonishment #criminal #duties #great #horror

The knights of the theater represented to me not only the pinnacle of the profession but the esteem in which the profession was held. To find myself, to my astonishment, in that company is the grandest thing that has professionally happened to me. ↗

— Patrick Stewart

#company #esteem #find #grandest #happened

I find to my mixed astonishment that I do dream, but I didn't know it. ↗

— Theodore Sturgeon

#dream #find #i #i do #know

I've been a woman for a little over 50 years and have gotten over my initial astonishment. As for conducting an orchestra, that's a job where I don't think sex plays much part. ↗

— Nadia Boulanger

#been #conducting #gotten #i #initial

I requested the gentlemen to put on their hats, and the ladies their shawls, to avoid catching cold, and then had the windows widely opened. This proceeding caused some astonishment and alarm at first; for the Americans generally have a dread of cold air. ↗

— George Combe

#alarm #astonishment #avoid #catching #caused