Sentence examples for be startled by a from inspiring English sources

("It is hard not to be startled by a sixty-word citation to Thornton Wilder").

She rises, stumbles from her cave, then squats and pisses beneath the moon — only to be startled by a terrifying rumble, an earthquake that buries her home.

In a nearby square you may be startled by a large, slightly caricatural sculpture of a man that is almost completely plastered with paper.

Diners would be startled by a team of gunmen, who would politely but firmly demand their telephones, promising that they would be returned at the end of the evening.

Frantic repeated motifs escalate with nerve-shattering intensity, reflecting the mind-set of a man who in 1948, when expecting to be arrested, slept by the elevator in his apartment building so his family wouldn't be startled by a knock on the door in the night.

After being immersed in the mind of an acolyte like Madero, readers may be startled by a judgment offered by an ex-girlfriend of Belano's: "The whole visceral realism thing was…the demented strutting of a dumb bird in the moonlight, something essentially cheap and meaningless".

There is ample reason to be startled by an obscure 14th century quote attributed to the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologos critical of the "malevolent works" of the prophet of Islam.

A frog may be startled by an unexpected noise but it will not usually take any action until it has located the source of the sound by sight.

I was startled by a sudden tinkling sound.

Fans were startled by a first-inning fire alarm.

But on this night, as her lids grew heavy, she was startled by a sound.