Quotes About Observation

Vince shook it playfully. "Maybe it'll help Anderson figure out who the victim is this time," he said. I opened my mouth to say that it didn't seem likely, that Anderson wouldn't figure it out if he had notarized statements from the killer and the victim, and then I closed my mouth and took a step back and didn't say anything at all.

One of the few eternal truths about humans is that if someone says they aren't sleeping, they're not rich, or they're not drunk, they almost certainly are. But telling them so when they deny it is thankless, unpleasant, and sometimes dangerous. So I just smiled understandingly at Rita. "Of course you're not," I said. "So why do we have to move because Lily Anne is getting so big?

Standing beside her was a man I can only describe as a generic fed, with a gray suit and white shirt and shiny black shoes. They were both facing my sister, Sergeant Deborah, and another man I didn't know. He was blond, about six feet tall, muscular, and absurdly good-looking in a rugged, masculine way, as if God had taken Brad Pitt and decided to make him really handsome.

Charming woman," Brian said, watching Rose disappear back into the kitchen. "You haven't seen anything yet," I told him. "Wait till you see how she puts a plate on the table." "I can hardly wait," he said. I

She took another noisy sip of coffee and raised an eyebrow at me.

She lifted both hands chest-high and shook them from the wrist, and I very clearly thought, Wow. She's wringing her hands.

have to know, he thought. I have to get out there and talk to people and see for myself. But there's nothing I can do now, and, dammit, I need some sleep.

hatchway with both hands, took a breath, glanced up, across the rows of tanks, half-tracks, and armored trucks moving into line. He watched as the oil trucks moved away

the gift from Vergennes, staring

with one goal, seeking information of some movement of the enemy, whether anyone was shifting

Henry Loving stimulates the amnesia gene. But it's also true most people are simply extremely unobservant. Freddy

Everyone stared at me now. I'd studied linguistics a long time ago. A little philology too, the study of languages from analyzing texts. Mostly for the fun of it, but the subject came in useful sometimes. Ellis

Cameras're sporadic

Maree may have noted that I said "wife" and not "ex," which imparted some information to her. She was smarter than the package suggested. She frowned her sympathy, which I didn't respond to.

I always carried in my breast or hip pocket a video camera disguised as a pen. It was linked to software whose algorithms alerted me that the body language of a person approaching was consistent with that of an impending attack. I also used it to record crowds in public when I was transporting principals, to see if faces of passersby in one locale turn up in another. A

Playing chess or Go or Tigris and Euphrates—a very good game, by the way—I can watch people as they choose their strategy and note how they respond to something I've done. Even

Shaw watched her dark eyes through the lens. If she were with

Then I notice, about a hundred yards away, to my right, a tall, black metal fence and, beyond, some buildings.

I WAS SITTING in one of our director's scuffed chairs next to a man who clearly knew me, since he'd nodded with some familiarity when I entered. I couldn't, however, place him beyond his being a federal prosecutor. About my age—forty—and short, a bit doughy, with hair in need of a trim. A fox's eyes. Aaron

One said, "Nobody paused in front of the house since we've been here." I slipped my ID case away. "Any out-of-state tags?" "Didn't notice any." Different answer from "No." One

I find I don't learn a lot while I'm talking

but he still wasn't sure how to respond to the English obsession with the weather.

longer looking at the

to be in the middle distance, and he was not perceptibly