top of page
.png){kind=small}
Observation Quotes
"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."
25
"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."
24
"A writer is a spectator, looking at everything with a highly critical eye."
24
"Women. They are a complete mystery."
24
"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."
24
"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."
24
"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."
23
"People seem to overlook an old man losing his mind if he occasionally made light of it."
23
"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."
23
"For the things in the chair, perfect to the last, subtle detail of microscopic resemblance - or identity - were the face and hands of Henry Wentworth Akeley."
23
"City people. They may know how to street fight but they don't know how to wade through manure."
23
"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."
22
"It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning."
22
"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."
22
"I like to prowl ordinary placesand taste the people-from a distance."
21
"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."
21
"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."
21
"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."
21
"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?"
21
"It never ceases to amaze me: the things people care about."
20
"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."
20
"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."
19
"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."
19
"Vivi muito tempo no mundo das pessoas grandes. Vi-as de bem perto. Não fiquei com muito melhor opinião delas."
19
"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."
18
"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)."
18
"This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!"
18
"Parrots mimic their owners. Their owners consider that a sign of intelligence."
17
"A journey of observation must leave as much as possible to chance. Random movement is the best plan for maximum observation."
16
"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."
16
"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."
16
"Is dishwater dull? Naturalists with microscopes have told me that it teems with quiet fun."
16
"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."
16
"I frequently observe that one pretty face would be followed by five and thirty frights."
16
"Y por que el sol es tan mal amigodel caminante en el desierto?Y por que el sol es tan simpaticoen el jardin del hospital?And why is the sun such a bad companionto the traveler in the desert?And why is the sun so congenial in the hospital garden?"
15
"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."
15
"Men, she thought, were odd about their clothes: they liked to wear the same things until they became defeated and threadbare."
15
"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."
15
"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."
15
"His lips made a grim twist that was like the joyless cousin of a smile."
15
"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."
15
"You would be much amused with the animals round the ranch."
15
"Snap your fingerstop the world - rain falls harder."
14
"He has cat blood, I reflected sourly, no doubt that was how he managed to sneak up on me in the darkness."
14
"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."
14
"Our world is made up of a myriad of microcosms, of tiny worlds, each with its own habitues, every one known to the others."
14
"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."
14
"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."
14
"She stood for some moments gazing at the sisters, with affection beaming in one eye, and calculation shining out of the other."
14
bottom of page