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Observation Quotes
"There is nothing left of him but curiosity and a pair of eyes."
46
"My observation is that after one hundred and twenty years of modernisation since the opening of the country, present-day Japan is split between two opposite poles of ambiguity."
45
"What a lovely display of personhood. He's like a good book cover that grabs your gaze. Read me. I'm fun but smart. You won't be able to put me down."
44
"The ox feels the yoke, but does the bird feel the weight of its wings?"
44
"From my close observation of writers... they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review."
44
"Figures are the most shocking things in the world. The prettiest little squiggles of black looked at in the right light and yet consider the blow they can give you upon the heart."
43
"A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate."
43
"The dragon, you know, hunkered in the village devouring maidens, heard the townsfolk cry 'Monster!' and looked behind him."
43
"I just think it's bad when a boy looks at a girl and thinks that the way he sees her is better than she actually is. And I think it's bad when the most honest way a boy can look at a girl is through a camera."
43
"I wonder if anyone but me realizes what goes on in that head back of your deceptively sweet face."
42
"This visit has compacted the court's quarrels and intrigues, trapped them in the small space within the town's walls. The travelers have become as intimate with each other as cards in a pack: contiguous, but their paper eyes blind."
41
"Here was the world-famous novelist with her penchant for detail; yet, in her observations of a prostitute with a customer, she had failed to come away with the most important detail of all. She could never identify the murderer; she could barely describe him. She'd made a point of not looking at him!"
41
"I paced while he slept, ricocheting like a dove skidding the lonely confines of a Joseph Cornell box."
41
"So it was perfectly possible that there were men who liked shopping, men who understood exactly what it was all about, but Mma Ramotwe had yet to meet such a man. Maybe they existed elsewhere - in France, perhaps - but they did not seem to be much in evidence in Botswana."
40
"The thing about a diversion is that it has to be diverting."
40
"All the sounds of man, the bleating of sheep, the cries of birds, the hum of insects, the stir that makes the background of our lives - all that was over."
40
"I think that my job is to observe people and the world, and not to judge them. I always hope to position myself away from so-called conclusions. I would like to leave everything wide open to all the possibilities in the world."
39
"I think it's nice for stars to do interviews to make us think they are just like us, but to tell you the truth, I get the feeling that it's all a big lie. The problem is I don't know who's lying."
39
"For the things in the chair, perfect to the last, subtle detail of microscopic resemblance - or identity - were the face and hands of Henry Wentworth Akeley."
39
"In times of long established peace, when the tradition of generations has established the illusion of the profoundest human security, men's minds are not greatly distressed by grotesqueness and absurdity in their political forms. It is all part of the humour and the good-humour of life. When one believes that all the tigers in the jungle are dead, it is quite amusing to walk along the jungle paths in a dressing-gown with a fan instead of a gun."
39
"All cases are unique and very similar to others."
39
"Evening had turned the sky a deep persimmon. The remaining sunlight enriched the colors of the ubiquitous flowers and foliage to even greater vibrancy, as if the saturation filter had been notched up several levels.Caleb noted all this in passing as he strode deliberately forward. He didn't know how he was going to do this, only that he had to make the attempt."
39
"You are a child if you thought I didn't know, for all your smothering yourself under that hot lap robe. Of course, I knew. Why else do you think I've been-He stopped suddenly and a silence fell between them. He picked up the reins and clucked to the horse."
39
"At the small table, sitting very upright, was one of the ugliest old ladies he had ever seen. It was an ugliness of distinction - it fascinated rather than repelled."
38
"As a teacher of fourth-graders in a public school, where corporal punishement was not allowed, she had years of violence stored up and was, truth be told, sort of enjoying letting it out on Kona, who she felt could have been the poster child for the failure of public education."
38
"Caroline stamped her foot in frustration, but when it landed, it landed on something considerablyless flat than the floor."Owww!" he yelled.Oh! His foot!Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorry , she mouthed.I didn't mean it."If you think I can understand that," he growled, "you're crazier than I'd originally thought."
38
"She was a voice with a body as afterthought, a wry smile that sailed through heavy traffic. Give her a history and she'd disappear.Eric Packer about Vija Kinski."
38
"Twenty-three stories up and all I could see out the windows was grey smog. They could call it the City of the Angels if they wanted to, but if there were angels out there, they had to be flying blind."
38
"Pretty women with no soul like paintings on the wall."
38
"You wouldn't recognize a good thing if it was spanking your ass."
37
"While her high cheekbones and sensual mouth added to her beauty, it was her eyes that caught him. They looked at the world as if it were a large sandbox waiting to expose its treasures."
37
"It was clearly a prisoner's craftwork; that is, the most painstaking work in the world, for prisoners have nowhere to hurry to."
37
"I once tried to give him a friendly little "drugs chat". He politely corrected me on every single fact, then said he'd noticed I drank above the recommended guidelines of Red Bull and did I think I might have an addiction? That was the last time I tried to act like the older sister."
37
"I followed the other Experiment around, yesterday afternoon, at a distance, to see what it might be for, if I could. But I was not able to make [it] out. I think it is a man. I had never seen a man, but it looked like one, and I feel sure that that is what it is. I realize that I feel more curiosity about it than about any of the other reptiles. If it is a reptile, and I suppose it is; for it has frowzy hair and blue eyes, and looks like a reptile. It has no hips; it tapers like a carrot; when it stands, it spreads itself apart like a derrick; so I think it is a reptile, though it may be architecture."
37
"It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning."
37
"Now, can I help you with something? I'm new, but I'll do my best to figure out how to get what you need. "That's good to hear, Abby, since I need your breasts for a few minutes."
37
"It feels like the city is telling secrets down here, privy only to those who think to listen."
37
"Naivete in grownups is often charming, but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity."
37
"There are few things less comforting than a tiger who's been up too late."
36
"THERE IT IS,' my mother says, and what she means is that the dot we've been nearing for weeks, the one that's been growing into a larger dot with two smaller dots circling it, has now become even larger than that, growing from a dot to a disc, shining back the light from its sun, until you can see the blue of its oceans, the green of its forests, the white of its polar caps, a circle of colour against the black beyond."
36
"There are times when I can't believe how much ridiculous stuff happens to me and how brilliant it is to be in a position to write about it."
36
"Everyone in the life before was cranky, I think, because they just wanted to know.--After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned."
36
"Ridges of muscle on his stomach rose under his skin like divisions on a slab of chocolate. He held her close by the light of an oil lamp, and he shone as though he had been polished with a high-wax body polish."
36
"His eyes said what I cannot see."
36
"And feast on the dead, I thought with a shudder. As if he could read my thoughts, he pressed a hand to my shoulder. His fingers were long and white, splaying over my arm like a waxen spider. If the gesture was meant to comfort me, it failed."
36
"Even at a time like this, the street is bright enough and filled with people coming and going-people with places to go and people with no place to go; people with a purpose and people with no purpose; people trying to hold time back and people trying to urge it forward."
35
"Learn to see what you are looking at."
35
"The rest were nondescript, as yet undifferentiated-yet nondescripts, thought Harriet, were the most difficult of all human beings to analyze. You scarcely knew they were there, until-bang! Something quite unexpected blew up like a depth charge and left you marveling, to collect strange floating debris."
35
"Visiting any shop for the first time is exciting. There's always that buzz as you push open the door; that hope; that belief - that this is going to be the shop of all shops, which will bring you everything you ever wanted, at magically low prices."
34
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