Quotes About Observation

She ran water from the tap and seemed to notice it. It was the first time she'd ever noticed this.

When the phone rang she did not look at it the way they do in the movies. Real people don't look at ringing phones.

my arms on the cinder track. Kids came running our way, thirty girls in bright shorts, an improbable bobbing mass. The eager breathing, the overlapping rhythms of their footfalls. Sometimes I think our love is inexperienced. The question of dying becomes a wise reminder. It cures us of our innocence of the future. Simple things are doomed, or is that a superstition? We watched

Como observa el satírico James Branch Cabell, «los optimistas dicen que vivimos en el mejor de los mundos posibles; los pesimistas temen que sea verdad».528

Las cosas importantes a observar deben ser visibles y estar señaladas con claridad; los resultados de cada acto deben ser inmediatamente evidentes.

A usable design starts with careful observations of how the tasks being supported are actually performed, followed by a design process that results in a good fit to the actual ways the tasks get performed. The technical name for this method is task analysis. The name for the entire process is human-centered design (HCD), discussed

Engineers and designers who believe they do not need to watch the people who use their products are a major source of the many poor designs that confront us.

art is a meditation upon external reality rather than a representation of external reality

Pia was chopping up an enormous cabbage, a cabbage big as a basketball. The cabbage was of an extraordinary size. It was a big cabbage. "That's a big cabbage," Edward said. "Big," Pia said.

Have you noticed the weather? asked Thomas. All turned to look for the weather.

I noticed that he was an Irish setter, rust-colored. He noticed that I was a Welsh sculptor, buff-colored (no, really, what did he notice? how does he think?) I reflected that he was probably a nice dog from a good home (bourgeois dog) but with certain unfortunate habits like jumping on people from high windows (rationalization: he is a member of the television generation and thus -)

I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.

I felt like I was in a movie and had two cameras for eyes

YOU DON'T KNOW a story is happening to you when you're in it.

I'M TRYNA SEE DA WHOLE TIDDY SON

Patta's expression seemed cordial enough, though from past experience Brunetti knew this was meaningless: vipers liked to bask on rocks in the sunshine, did they not?

Brunetti watched Cesco trying to decide whether to say something else, so he made himself look as much like an oak tree as possible: patient, motionless, secure.

His eyes were all policeman.

prejudice: so comforting until someone noticed

There had been no noise from any other part of the apartment, but that didn't exclude the possibility of Paolo's presence, especially if she had given her soul over to reading. He sometimes told her that Attila could storm through the house and she'd not notice if she were reading. She had most recently disputed this by claiming that it would depend on the book. Her door was open, so he went in. And found her on the sofa, with Henry James.

And the sight

To understand the world at all, sometimes you could only focus on a tiny bit of it, look very hard at what was close to hand and make it stand in for the whole;

I was fascinated by strangers, wanted to know what food they ate and what dishes they ate it from, what movies they watched and what music they listened to, wanted to look under their beds and in their secret drawers and night tables and inside the pockets of their coats.

Occasionally a car swooshed by in the rain and its headlights would swing round momentarily and illuminate the room-the pool table, snowshoes on the wall and the rowing machine, the armchair in which Henry sat, motionless, a glass in his hand and the cigarette burning low between his fingers. For a moment his face, pale and watchful as a ghost's, would be caught in the headlights and then, very gradually, it would slide back into the dark.