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Observation Quotes
"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
"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
"This may be my only chance to see humans before these two are made into fertilizer for Moonwind's rosebushes."
8
"It never ceases to amaze me: the things people care about."
7
"He has cat blood, I reflected sourly, no doubt that was how he managed to sneak up on me in the darkness."
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
"There are few things less comforting than a tiger who's been up too late."
7
"Everything was on television last night."
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
"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."
7
"Men, she thought, were odd about their clothes: they liked to wear the same things until they became defeated and threadbare."
6
"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
"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."
6
"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."
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
"Is dishwater dull? Naturalists with microscopes have told me that it teems with quiet fun."
6
"Generally, there is a lot of truth value in stepping back, observing, then logically generalizing the extremes of what you see."
6
"Vivi muito tempo no mundo das pessoas grandes. Vi-as de bem perto. Não fiquei com muito melhor opinião delas."
6
"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."
6
"It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning."
6
"A journey of observation must leave as much as possible to chance. Random movement is the best plan for maximum observation."
5
"Sometimes thought Liir-his first thought in weeks and weeks-sometimes I hate this marvelous land of ours. It's so much like home, and then it holds out on you."
5
"She stood for some moments gazing at the sisters, with affection beaming in one eye, and calculation shining out of the other."
5
"At a time when she was engaged to Stilton Cheesewright, I remember recording in the archives that she was tall and willowy with a terrific profile and luxuriant platinum blond-hair, the sort of girl who might, as far as looks were concerned, have been the star unit of the harem of one of the better-class sultans."
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
"I tried to bring up boyfriends and sex. Her great dark eyes surveyed me with emptiness and a kind of chagrin that reached back generations and generations in her blood from not having done what was crying to be done--whatever it was, and everybody knows what it was."
5
"If he's not he should be by now. The things that happen to people we never really know. What happens in houses behind closed doors, what secrets."
5
"The tedious never die, that's what makes them tedious."
5
"He reads much;He is a great observer and he looksQuite through the deeds of men: he loves no plays,As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music;Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sortAs if he mock'd himself and scorn'd his spiritThat could be moved to smile at any thing.Such men as he be never at heart's easeWhiles they behold a greater than themselves,And therefore are they very dangerous."
5
"The answers to your problems lie all around you. The keys to your self-discovery are waiting to be found in each sunset, each pair of eyes, each breath of fresh air. Listen to the symphony of life and you will hear yourself. Find the beauty of nature and you have found your soul."
5
"Think not because no man sees such things will remain unseen."
5
"You would be much amused with the animals round the ranch."
5
"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."
5
"I wonder if anyone but me realizes what goes on in that head back of your deceptively sweet face."
5
"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."
5
"The only thing that can stop hair from falling ... is the floor."
4
"It's strange to see people you don't know well in the morning, with sleepy eyes and pillow creases in their cheeks."
4
"As far as she could see, children mostly argued, shouted, ran around very fast, laughed loudly, picked their noses, got dirty and sulked."
4
"People just weren't interesting. Maybe they weren't supposed to be. But animals, birds, even insects were. I couldn't understand it."
4
"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."
4
"His eyes passed over the solid shapes of the instruments and computers that lined the bridge. They winked away innocently at him. He stared out at the stars, but none of them said a word."
4
"It was a nasty look. It made me feel as if I were something the dog had brought in and intended to bury later on, when he had time."
4
"Parrots mimic their owners. Their owners consider that a sign of intelligence."
4
"Women. They are a complete mystery."
4
"Society in its boundless ignorance ridicules the caterpillar but praises the butterfly."
4
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