top of page
.png){kind=small}
Observation Quotes
"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."
34
"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."
34
"Women and elephants never forget."
34
"I think it's odd that grown-ups quarrel so easily and so often and about such petty matters. Up to now I always thought bickering was just something children did and that they outgrew it."
34
"Ky still looks at me and I wonder for a moment if he is going to ask me what I am thinking about. But of course, he doesn't. He doesn't learn things by asking questions... He learns by watching."
34
"People seem to overlook an old man losing his mind if he occasionally made light of it."
33
"Huh," said Percy. "Never seen Jason fly before. He looks like a blond superman."
32
"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."
32
"Body language has no translation."
32
"City people. They may know how to street fight but they don't know how to wade through manure."
32
"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)."
31
"Women. They are a complete mystery."
31
"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?"
31
"Everything was on television last night."
31
"Blonde hair drawn into a no - nonsense bun, her new manicure the deep red of fresh blood, she'd even donned a blouse and slacks for the occasion, something Neve had forgotten Veronica owned."
30
"Hoyt was by himself right under one of the portable lights rigged up for the occasion. He had his hands thrust in his pockets, and he looked more serious than I'd ever seen him. There was something strange about the sight, and after a second I figured out why.It was one of the few times I'd ever seen Hoyt alone."
30
"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?"
30
"A writer is a spectator, looking at everything with a highly critical eye."
28
"In fact it was altogether an odd dog, of uncertain breed, or breeds. It was large and black, but its hair was tufty, its body scrawny and clumsy, and its manner edgy, anxious, verging on the completely neurotic. Whenever it came to a halt for a moment or so, the business of starting up again often seemed to cause it trouble, as if it had difficulty in remembering where it had left each of its legs."
28
"It never ceases to amaze me: the things people care about."
25
"Our world is made up of a myriad of microcosms, of tiny worlds, each with its own habitues, every one known to the others."
25
"I like to prowl ordinary placesand taste the people-from a distance."
25
"I attributed their behavior to the fact that they didn't have a TV, but television didn't teach you everything. Asking for candy on Halloween was called trick-or-treating, but asking for candy on November first was called begging, and it made people uncomfortable. This was one of the things you were supposed to learn simply by being alive, and it angered me that the Tomkeys did not understand it."
24
"The eyes, too, were reptilelike in glint and gaze. Yet at that instant, humbled and alert in their look, they were lit by one tiny human point, the window of a shriveled soul, poignant and selfembittered."
24
"They appear somewhat unreliable,' he murmured.'Unreliable? Nonsense, Superior! Out of luck is all, and we both know how that goes, no? Why, there's not a man of them I wouldn't trust my mother to.'Are you sure?'She's been dead these twenty years. What harm could they do her now?"
24
"Vivi muito tempo no mundo das pessoas grandes. Vi-as de bem perto. Não fiquei com muito melhor opinião delas."
24
"Flowers are so inconsistent!"
23
"But if one observes, one will see that the body has its own intelligence; it requires a great deal of intelligence to observe the intelligence of the body."
23
"I frequently observe that one pretty face would be followed by five and thirty frights."
23
"Ty swept his arms around, encompassing everything around them, the vast campus above. 'All this. The fucking shark that eats the world."
22
"Certainly there are very real differences between us of race, age, and sex. But it is not those differences between us that are separating us. It is rather our refusal to recognize those differences, and to examine the distortions which result from our misnaming them and their effects upon human behavior and expectation."
22
"I'll never love you anymore than I do, right this second. And I'll never love you any less than Ido, right this second."
22
"The surveillance, he thought, essentially should be maintained. And, if possible, by me. I should always be watching, watching and figuring out, even if I never do anything about what I see; even if I just sit there and observe silently, not seen: that is important, that I as a watcher of all that happens should be at my place."
22
"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."
22
"This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!"
22
"The warmly cool, clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing, redundant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped up-flaked up, with rose-water snow."
22
"Her eyes traced the sleek shape of the table's legs, the sinuous curves of its corners, the gleam of its reflective, dark brown surface. She noticed that every time she breathed out, the surface fogged, and she disappeared from her father's table."
21
"Men, she thought, were odd about their clothes: they liked to wear the same things until they became defeated and threadbare."
21
"A journey of observation must leave as much as possible to chance. Random movement is the best plan for maximum observation."
21
"It is worth repeating at this point the theories that Ford had come up with, on his first encounter with human beings, to account for their peculiar habit of continually stating and restating the very very obvious, as in "It's a nice day," or "You're very tall," or "So this is it, we're going to die."His first theory was that if human beings didn't keep exercising their lips, their mouths probably shriveled up.After a few months of observation he had come up with a second theory, which was this--"If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, their brains start working."
21
"His lips made a grim twist that was like the joyless cousin of a smile."
21
"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."
21
"His coworker was velvety-skinned, a sexy boy-on-the-cusp-of man."
21
"Is dishwater dull? Naturalists with microscopes have told me that it teems with quiet fun."
21
"Think not because no man sees such things will remain unseen."
21
"When I was growing up, my parents were almost involved in various volunteer things. My dad was head of Planned Parenthood. And it was very controversial to be involved with that."
20
"What is fascinating is that it is physical. You know, that's one thing about intellectuals, they've proved that you can be absolute brilliant and have no idea what's going on. But on the other hand, the body doesn't lie, as we now know. Nono, it'll be great, because all of those ph.Ds are in there, like, discussing modes of alienation, and we'll be in here quietly humping."
20
"Snap your fingerstop the world - rain falls harder."
20
"His shoulder-length hair was a rich, dark-brown color with a slight wave to it and it flowed behind him as he ran into the center of the gypsies. He was tall, muscular, and so beautifully handsome, yet primal. He looked magnificent."
20
bottom of page