It is the lack of refinement in possession that can be startling and the tendency to rush passes.
Her immaculate, almost surgical efficiency at describing the consequences of being desperately in love is a startling contrast to our tendency to think about passion as something warm, comforting, generous.
Colleagues there recall a handsome, warm-hearted, and distinctly eccentric addition to their ranks, with a startling taste in clothes and a tendency to prowl shoeless round the office.
But her most startling discovery is that melancholy, with its tendency to brood and spread, is best contained in a form that is tight, witty, almost sprightly sounding.
Her greatest gift as a poet, he wrote, is the "melancholy lucidity" she brings to her work, and her most startling discovery "is that melancholy, with its tendency to brood and spread, is best contained in a form that is tight, witty, almost sprightly sounding".
A single blade, gently drooping under its own weight, it is startling for being the opposite of every icon-forging "place-making" tendency that such a design contest usually encourages.
On the contrary, given the tendency for prices to overshoot after bubbles, it would be startling if house prices stopped at fair value.
Rhode Island's experiences from 1790 to the mid-19th century produced a startling contrast between innovative, adventurous changes in the economy and conservative tendencies in social and political evolution.
Bei, who was arrested 12 years ago for illegally publishing his quarterly journal, Tendency, and has been banned from entering the country since, said there were startling omissions in the Chinese lineup, which was meant to represent the country's literary scene.
We are so accustomed to the voyeuristic conventions and pedagogical tendencies of nature documentaries that the returned gaze and its manifold implications are startling.
YOU know you're in startling proximity to a "Ring" cycle fan when you find yourself leaning slightly away from him, fearful that his pronunciation of "gesamtkunstwerk" might have a tendency to spray.
