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Observation Quotes
"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."
30
"Is it worth while to observe that there are no Venetian blinds in Venice?"
29
"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."
29
"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!"
29
"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."
28
"This may be my only chance to see humans before these two are made into fertilizer for Moonwind's rosebushes."
28
"The dragon, you know, hunkered in the village devouring maidens, heard the townsfolk cry 'Monster!' and looked behind him."
28
"Pretty women with no soul like paintings on the wall."
28
"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."
27
"Huh," said Percy. "Never seen Jason fly before. He looks like a blond superman."
27
"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."
27
"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."
27
"His eyes said what I cannot see."
27
"It feels like the city is telling secrets down here, privy only to those who think to listen."
27
"You wouldn't recognize a good thing if it was spanking your ass."
26
"When you enter a room, a social situation, or a business meeting, be mindful of cues; read between the lines to better understand people and events. What do these things tell you?"
26
"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."
26
"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."
25
"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."
25
"The ox feels the yoke, but does the bird feel the weight of its wings?"
25
"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."
25
"A carpenter is hired- a roof repaired, a porch built. Everything that can be fixed. June, July, August. Everyday we hear their laughter. I think of the painting by van Gogh, the man in the chair. Everything wrong, and nowhere to go. His hands over his eyes."
25
"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."
25
"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."
24
"I wonder if anyone but me realizes what goes on in that head back of your deceptively sweet face."
24
"Naivete in grownups is often charming, but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity."
24
"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."
23
"Learn to see what you are looking at."
23
"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)."
22
"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."
22
"It was clearly a prisoner's craftwork; that is, the most painstaking work in the world, for prisoners have nowhere to hurry to."
22
"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."
22
"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."
22
"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."
22
"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."
21
"Women. They are a complete mystery."
21
"People seem to overlook an old man losing his mind if he occasionally made light of it."
21
"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."
21
"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."
21
"Body language has no translation."
21
"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."
21
"Everything was on television last night."
21
"Women and elephants never forget."
21
"City people. They may know how to street fight but they don't know how to wade through manure."
21
"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."
21
"The thing about a diversion is that it has to be diverting."
21
"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."
21
"A writer is a spectator, looking at everything with a highly critical eye."
20
"I like to prowl ordinary placesand taste the people-from a distance."
20
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