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Observation Quotes
"Novelists should never allow themselves to weary of the study of real life. If they observed this duty conscientiously, they would give us fewer pictures chequered with vivid contrasts of light and shade; they would seldom elevate their heroes and heroines to the heights of rapture - still seldomer sink them to the depths of despair; for if we rarely taste the fulness of joy in this life, we yet more rarely savour the acrid bitterness of hopeless anguish."
11
"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."
11
"Their faces were as a rule good-natured rather than beautiful."
11
"When you see a married couple coming down the street the one who is two or three steps ahead is the one who's mad."
11
"He saw that it was the gaps that were important, the spaces between the threads which made the pattern, and not the threads themselves."
10
"All she had to do was make the simplest of gestures - open her hands and let go her hold. She lifted one hand and moved the fingers of it; they responded, in surprise and obedience, and this obedience of a thousand little unsuspected muscles was in itself a miracle. Why ask for more?"
10
"It's strange to see people you don't know well in the morning, with sleepy eyes and pillow creases in their cheeks."
10
"I believe in spectacles, but I think eyes necessary too."
10
"The scrape and snap of Keds on loose alley pebbles seems to catapult their voices high into the moist March air blue above the wires."
10
"An idiot child screaming in a hospital. (on George Bernard Shaw)"
10
"By the time I had finished my coffee and returned to the streets, the rain had temporarily abated, but the streets were full of vast puddles where the drains where unable to cope with the volume of water. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you would think that if one nation ought by now to have mastered the science of drainage, Britain would be it."
10
"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."
10
"It always strikes me, and it is very peculiar, that, whenever we see the image of indescribable and unutterable desolation-of loneliness, poverty, and misery, the end and extreme of things-the thought of God comes into one's mind."
10
"If I were to draw, I would apply myself only to studying the form of inanimate objects,' I said somewhat imperiously, because I wanted to change the subjects and also because a natural inclination does truly lead me to recognise my moods in the motionless suffering of things."
10
"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."
10
"At some point they show their true colorsAfter the break upAfter the trial After the contract is signed and brokenTheir true colors stinkThese daysI find it hard to get along with themI want to push them until the colors come out And sometimes I hate them so much, I push and seeI do the same to the ones I likeThe ones I don't care about I smile at real nice."
10
"His heavy-lidded gaze reflected a languor that had nothing to do with having just awakened, and there was no doubt what was on his mind. But this is no safe cherry picker, Gwen thought, growing more concerned by the moment.This man looks like a cherry tree chopper-downer."
10
"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."
10
"Dark alleys, like social networks, are romantic, because you never know what might happen while I perform there every Caturday night. Cats do know, but won't tell. So don't even ask."
10
"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."
10
"Nothing goes so well with a hot fire and buttered crumpets as a wet day without and a good dose of comfortable horrors within. The heavier the lashing of the rain and the ghastlier the details, the better the flavour seems to be."
10
"Everything took on the color of blood."
10
"The bowl is warmer than the soup."
10
"The irony of life is that those who wear masks often tell us more truths than those with open faces."
10
"She's Prim's size in diameter."
10
"The weirder you're going to behave, the more normal you should look. It works in reverse, too. When I see a kid with three or four rings in his nose, I know there is absolutely nothing extraordinary about that person."
9
"At any rate I'd better be getting out of the wood, for really its coming on very dark. Do you think it's going to rain?'Tweedledum spread a large umbrella over himself and his brother, and looked up into it.'No, I don't think it is,' he said: 'at least - not under here. Nohow.''But it may rain outside?''It may - if it chooses,' said Tweedledee: 'we've got no objection. Contrariwise."
9
"Patrick actually used to be popular before Sam bought him some good music."
9
"Ty swept his arms around, encompassing everything around them, the vast campus above. 'All this. The fucking shark that eats the world."
9
"I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime."
9
"A zoo is a good place to make a spectacle of yourself, as the people around you have creepier, more photogenic things to look at."
9
"Arcadio had seen her many times working in her parents' small food store but he had never taken a good look at her because she had that rare virtue of never existing completely except at the opportune moment."
9
"Human skin hisses like a rattlesnake when it burns."
9
"The tiny Lilliputians surmise that Gulliver's watch may be his god, because it is that which, he admits, he seldom does anything without consulting."
9
"Boys are marvellous creatures. Perhaps they will sink below the brutes, perhaps they will attain to a woman's tenderness."
9
"His coworker was velvety-skinned, a sexy boy-on-the-cusp-of man."
9
"I confess I do not know why, but looking at the stars always makes me dream."
9
"You don't know me, dude," he says, not smiling this time. Gonzo examines his cards, prepping for his next move. "People always think that they know other people, but they don't. Not really. I mean, maybe they know things about them, like they won't eat doughnuts or they like action movies or whatever. But they don't know what their friends do in their rooms alone at night or what happened to them when they were kids or if they feel ****ed up for no reason at all."
8
"I like to go to Starbucks and watch the intellectuals. I observe them and their intellectualness. They in turn observe me drinking coffee and being a creeper."
8
"People just weren't interesting. Maybe they weren't supposed to be. But animals, birds, even insects were. I couldn't understand it."
8
"We feel a private thrill, admit it, at the sight of beauty in flames. We wish to blast all the fine old things to oblivion and replace them with tasteless identicalstructures."
8
"How do you feel?He rubbed his stomach. "Like I've been eating Styrofoam."
8
"Some people just don't have what it takes to appreciate a cookie."
8
"His only weakness was the habit of prophesying war within the next fortnight. George Bernard Shaw."
8
"The warmly cool, clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing, redundant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped up-flaked up, with rose-water snow."
8
"Irritability was an occupational disease. Intolerant and intolerable belong in the same category."
8
"While humans play God, dogs learn from their masters."
8
"No writer has an imaginative power richer than what the streets offer."
8
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