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Observation Quotes
!["Looking up at [the sky], I think about the October evening world, where 'people' must be going about their lives. Beneath that pale autumn light, they must be walking down streets, going to the store for things, preparing dinner, boarding trains for home. And they think--if they think at all--that these things are too obvious to think about, just as I used to do (or not do)."](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==)
"Looking up at [the sky], I think about the October evening world, where 'people' must be going about their lives. Beneath that pale autumn light, they must be walking down streets, going to the store for things, preparing dinner, boarding trains for home. And they think--if they think at all--that these things are too obvious to think about, just as I used to do (or not do)."
8
"Accuracy of observation is the equivalent of accuracy of thinking."
8
"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."
8
"People seem to overlook an old man losing his mind if he occasionally made light of it."
8
"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."
8
"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."
8
"You know what it's like when a cart overturns in the street? Everybody you meet has witnessed it. They saw a man's leg sliced clean off. They saw a woman gasp her last. They saw the goods looted, thieves stealing from the back-end while the carter was crushed at the front. They heard a man roar out his last confession, while another whispered his last will and testament. And if all the people who say they were there had really been there, then the dregs of London would have drained to the one spot, the gaols emptied of thieves, the beds empty of whores, and all the lawyers standing on the shoulders of the butchers to get a better look."
7
"Whoa. Fangs. She had fangs.She leaned in, prodded them a little. Eating with those puppies was going to take some getting used to, she thought.On impulse, she brought up her hands, turned her fingers into claws. Hissed.Cool."
7
"She thought of Aziza's stutter, and of what Aziza had said earlier about fractures and powerful collisions deep down and how sometimes all we see on the surface is a slight tremor."
7
"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."
7
"One must always proceed with method. I made an error of judgment asking you that question. Toeach man his own knowledge. You could tell me the details of the patient's physical appearance- nothing there would escape you. If I wanted information about the papers on the desk, Mr. Raymond would have noticed anything there was to see. To find out about the fire, I must ask the man whose business is to observe such things. - Detective Hercule Poirot to Doctor Sheppard."
7
"Her beauty was a weapon. A loaded gun, with the barrel pointed at her own head."
7
"It was a curious day, slashed abruptly with fleeting, familiar impressions."
7
"His eyes said what I cannot see."
7
"If only the Geologists would let me alone, I could do very well, but those dreadful Hammers! I hear the clink of them at the end of every cadence of the Bible verses."
7
"Naivete in grownups is often charming, but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity."
7
"When people stargazing, they stare at stars,and many other things which they've already presumed commonly and universally as stars."
7
"Her eyes betrayed no shock at the sights of the quay as they unfolded " not the sweating deckhands, the prostitutes crowding the ship, the hubbub of stalls, including one where three slaves were for sale, their ankles manacled. She might as well have been walking through a country garden as she moved inexorably away from the water."
6
"I like to prowl ordinary placesand taste the people-from a distance."
6
"You have now learned to see That cats are much like you and me And other people whom we find Possessed of various types of mind."
6
"I've often been sorry to see a night end, even while I have loved seeing the dawn come."
6
"It's only because I've lived with brothers that I realize, after a moment, that he's not looking outside but rather inside, wrestling with something inside himself. And there's nothing for it but to wait."
6
"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."
6
"It was a voice that you felt you had to listen to-or you ignored at your peril."
6
"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!"
6
"There isn't a simple person anywhere in this world."
6
"It never ceases to amaze me: the things people care about."
5
"Men, she thought, were odd about their clothes: they liked to wear the same things until they became defeated and threadbare."
5
"He has cat blood, I reflected sourly, no doubt that was how he managed to sneak up on me in the darkness."
5
"Quiet people always know more than they seem. Although very normal, their inner world is by default fronted mysterious and therefore assumed weird. Never underestimate the social awareness and sense of reality in a quiet person; they are some of the most observant, absorbent persons of all."
5
"The house was clean, scrubbed and immaculate, curtains washed, windows polished, but all as a man does it - the ironed curtains did not hang quite straight and there were streaks on the windows and a square showed on the table when a book was moved."
5
"I feel sorry for novelists when they have to mention women's eyes: there's so little choice, and whatever colouring is decided upon inevitably carries banal implications. Her eyes are blue: innocence and honesty. Her eyes are black: passion and depth. Her eyes are green: wildness and jealousy. Her eyes are violet: the novel is by Raymond Chandler."
5
"You are not walking slow enough, when taking a walk, if you do not come across as bored or depressed (to the average sane person)."
5
"I just know Maycomb. I'm not in the least sensitive about it, but good Lord, I'm certainly aware of it."
5
"This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!"
5
"It's not as if he's good-looking, because he's not. Sometimes he's so plain that he looks bland. But it's his voice and his mannerisms that fill him with some kind of color. I listen to his voice and its resonance hooks me in. The worry lines on his forehead, his expression when he twists his face into a smile, and the way his whole face lights up when he laughs those short bursts of laughter."
5
"Body language has no translation."
5
"City people. They may know how to street fight but they don't know how to wade through manure."
5
"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."
5
"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."
5
"It feels like the city is telling secrets down here, privy only to those who think to listen."
5
"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."
5
"A journey of observation must leave as much as possible to chance. Random movement is the best plan for maximum observation."
4
"It was dark, so I couldn't make out much of her face, but she had brilliant red hair, like honey and roses and the sun altogether."
4
"There are few things less comforting than a tiger who's been up too late."
4
"Is dishwater dull? Naturalists with microscopes have told me that it teems with quiet fun."
4
"Generally, there is a lot of truth value in stepping back, observing, then logically generalizing the extremes of what you see."
4
"Vivi muito tempo no mundo das pessoas grandes. Vi-as de bem perto. Não fiquei com muito melhor opinião delas."
4
"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."
4
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