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Observation Quotes
"Accuracy of observation is the equivalent of accuracy of thinking."
17
"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."
16
"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!"
16
"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."
16
"When people stargazing, they stare at stars,and many other things which they've already presumed commonly and universally as stars."
16
"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."
15
"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."
15
"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."
15
"It feels like the city is telling secrets down here, privy only to those who think to listen."
15
"The dragon, you know, hunkered in the village devouring maidens, heard the townsfolk cry 'Monster!' and looked behind him."
15
"He's got more red flags than Soviet Russia."
13
"People seem to overlook an old man losing his mind if he occasionally made light of it."
13
"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."
13
"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."
12
"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."
12
"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."
12
"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."
12
"You wouldn't recognize a good thing if it was spanking your ass."
11
"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."
11
"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)."
11
"I like to prowl ordinary placesand taste the people-from a distance."
11
"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."
11
"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."
11
"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."
11
"He has a wide gait and I struggle to appear casual as I attempt to match his stride. His shirt's back on, which is a sin. He could definitely give Echo's guy a run for his money in the abs department."
11
"Naivete in grownups is often charming, but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity."
11
"A writer is a spectator, looking at everything with a highly critical eye."
10
"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."
10
"When you patiently examine the beautiful skin of the leopard after it's hard day's search for the meat it enjoys, you shall not only see the sweat that went into its search for the meat, but you shall also realize the scent of the sweat beneath the beautiful skin."
10
"Body language has no translation."
10
"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."
10
"City people. They may know how to street fight but they don't know how to wade through manure."
10
"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."
10
"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."
9
"Learn to see what you are looking at."
9
"The ox feels the yoke, but does the bird feel the weight of its wings?"
9
"The thing about a diversion is that it has to be diverting."
9
"His eyes said what I cannot see."
9
"It was clearly a prisoner's craftwork; that is, the most painstaking work in the world, for prisoners have nowhere to hurry to."
8
"I stood like Adam in his lonely gardenOn that first morning, shaken out of sleep,Rubbing his eyes, listening, parting the leaves,Like tissue on some vast, incredible gift."
8
"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."
8
"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."
8
"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."
8
"It was mild monsters like these that made Jack the Ripper go after young women, she decided: who could tolerate yielding the world to someone who behaved as if she had given birth to the very world herself?"
8
"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."
8
"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."
8
"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)."
7
"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."
7
"This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!"
7
"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."
7
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