Quotes About Observation

If you don't know the fantasy life of a country, it's hard to write fiction about it.

Tu pleci, in timp ce altii, nu prea multi, raman pe loc, continuand sa faca ceea ce au facut dintotdeauna, iar cand te intorci, te minunezi ca-i vezi tot acolo si pe moment te simti usurat fiindca exista cineva care-si petrece intreaga viata in acelasi locsor, neavand deloc chef sa plece.

The big hair was red-gold and the skin peachy-tinged pale and arms freckled and zy-gomatics indescribable and her eyes an extra-natural HD green.

Nechtr looks at him, but that's almost even creepier: this Mark guy looks at you with the kind of distanced concentration you use to look at something you're eating.

David Foster Wallace

Actually, I have never seen an average American household. Except on TV.

These ladies are not stupid, or ignorant. Mrs. Thompson can read both Latin and Spanish, and Ms. Voigtlander is a certified speech therapist who once explained to me that the strange gulping sound that makes NBC's Tom Brokaw so distracting to listen to is an actual speech impediment called a glottal L. It was one of the ladies out in the kitchen supporting Mrs. R—- who pointed out that 11 September is the anniversary of the Camp David Accords, which was certainly news to me. What

Everyone around us could see the way Lyndon hung on the sound of his wife's voice, saw the tiny curtsies, her social motions, as though each movement of Lady Bird gently burst a layer of impediment between her and him.

Nipples like pencil erasers, hard and corrective against wide shallow breasts whose broad curves I know like the Lake's own tired sweep.

The sun, if your fluttering eye catches it even slightly, gives you the blue and red floaters a flashbulb gives you.

Don't volunteer anything. Let the other person do all the talking. Most people can't stand silence, so they have to fill it up with words.

Fishing is like watching baseball, he says, in that it takes such total concentration that you shouldn't even be noticing little details like your arms and legs and head and mind and the miles- long strings of questions inside it.

Overcomers concentrate on details that go unnoticed by others. They do what needs to be done, even when no one is watching.

Every child is created uniquely by God. God puts a certain formula in the heart of every child. And it is the parents' challenge to figure out the combination. We need to spend time studying, looking, listening, and observing.

in his mind nearly everyone seemed to be noticing him in the same way that he was focusing on himself.

The way you're singing in your sleep The way you look before you leap The strange illusions that you keep You don't know But I'm noticing The way your touch turns into arcs The way you slide into the dark The beating of my open heart You don't know But I'm noticing

I am a drifter, and as lonely as that can be, it is also remarkably freeing. I will never define myself in terms of anyone else. I will never feel the pressure of peers or the burden of parental expectation. I can view everyone as pieces of a whole, and focus on the whole, not the pieces. I have learned to observe, far better than most people observe. I am not blinded by the past or motivated by the future. I focus on the present because that is where I am destined to live.

I still don't know if this is a good quality or a bad one, to be able to be in the moment and then step out of it.

I should talk to him I know I should talk to him. But I do not talk to him. I watch after him from afar and love him.

I am like the fish in the aquarium, thinking in a different language, adapting to a life that's not my natural habitat. I am the people in the other cars, each with his or her own story, but passing too quickly to be noticed or understood.

It's like, you know how sometimes you see a really sexy baby? Wait...

You don't know, but I'm noticing.

I have learned how to observe, far better than most people observe. I am not blinded by the past or motivated by the future. I focus on the present, because that is where I am destined to live.

It was strange enough to think that Norah knew who I was before I knew who she was. That she'd been in Tris's orbit without me noticing. But I guess you don't see the planets when you're staring at the sun. You just get blinded.