Surely people should eventually cease to be surprised at anything? And yet they continue to be.

It hadn't shocked the old woman, not much. She had got past being shocked early in life.

No one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze and, like children, do not know where they come from or where they are going, act as rarely as they do according to genuine motives, and are as thoroughly governed as they are by biscuits and cake and the rod.

Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns to be amused rather than shocked.

No one is so brave that he is not disturbed by something unexpected.

The students are asked to rate their level of surprise on a five-point scale from ‘not surprised at all’ to ‘beyond shock’. Many describe feelings of total shock and numbness: a large majority indicate some level of surprise. He asks them: “Why were you surprised?

True to the precepts handed down to her by her mother and grandmother — to wit: that a true lady can neither be shocked nor surprised — Miss Marple merely raised her eyebrows and shook her head,

It's never permitted to be surprised at the aberrations of born fools.

I never, even for a moment, doubted what they’d told me. This is why it is that adults and even parents can, unwittingly, be cruel: they cannot imagine doubt’s complete absence. They have forgotten.

Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often.

It sounds like a lot of you are not too surprised if this 30% chance materialises,” Dan replies. “You take precautions against it. The rain, if it comes, doesn’t shock you, and you have your umbrella. So why was everyone so shocked about Trump?

The plain working truth is that it is not only good for people to be shocked occasionally, but absolutely necessary to the progress of society that they should be shocked pretty often.

There are people we cannot think ill of without proof of their misdeeds, but nobody's misdeeds should ever surprise us.

Because I am not a touchy-feely person, I always feel this light shock, this surprise, really, when my skin comes into contact with another person’s skin. Sometimes that shock is pleasant, like Oh, here is my body in the world. Sometimes, it is not. I never know which it will be.