Quotes About Observation

We are very slow to recognise in the peculiar physiognomy of a new writer the model which is labelled "great talent" in our museum of general ideas.

He could see her, but dared not remain for fear of annoying her by seeming to be spying upon the pleasures which she tasted in other company, pleasures which - while he drove home in utter loneliness, and went to bed, as anxiously as I myself was to go to bed, some years later, on the evenings when he came to dine with us at Combray - seemed illimitable to him since he had not been able to see their end.

Her [Odette's] eyes were beautiful, but so large they seemed to droop beneath their own weight, strained the rest of her face and always made her appear unwell or in a bad mood.

I concluded all the same from this first evening that his [Morel's] must be a vile nature, that he would not shrink from any act of servility if the need arose, and was incapable of gratitude. In which he resembled the majority of mankind.

Similarly, a little later on, the author will point out to us, among the crowd he describes, a "reactionary." That is common enough designation today. But here, I ask Mr. Flaubert again: "A reactionary? How can you recognize one at a distance? Who told you? How do you know about it?" The author evidently is amusing himself, and all these characteristics are invented on a whim.

There are optical errors in time as there are in space.

Repeatedly, I dare say, when pretty girls went by, I had promised myself that I would see them again. As a rule, people do not appear a second time; moreover our memory, which speedily forgets their existence, would find it difficult to recall their appearance; our eyes would not recognise them, perhaps, and in the meantime we have seen new girls go by, whom we shall not see again either.

The need to speak prevents one not merely from listening but from seeing things, and in this case the absence of any description of my external surroundings is tantamount to a description of my internal state.

Most people who travel look only at what they are directed to look at. Great is the power of the guidebook maker, however ignorant.

The philosopher Ernst Mach once got on a bus, and saw a scruffy unkempt bookish-looking person at the far end. He thought to himself (1) That man is a shabby pedagogue. In fact, Mach was seeing himself in a large mirror at the far end of the bus, of the sort conductors used to help keep track of things. He eventually realized this, and thought to himself: (2) I am that man. (3) I am a shabby pedagogue.

but you can't ever be sure about a white man, and if you've got one that believes in virgin births, risin' from the dead, and God punishin' two nekkid people for wantn an education, you need to watch his ass ever' minute of the day.

Got him, Knapp said. He was standing by with another magazine and spotting for the lieutenant. Left, monster in the open.

The greatest thing a human being ever does in this world is to see something... To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.

I should recommend...keeping...a small memorandum-book in the breast-pocket, with its well-cut sheathed pencil, ready for notes on passing opportunities, but never being without this.

To be taught to write or to speak — but what is the use of speaking if you have nothing to say? To be taught to think — nay, what is the use of being able to think, if you have nothing to think of? But to be taught to see is to gain word and thought at once, and both true.

The more I think of it, the more I find this conclusion impressed upon me, that the greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way.

But to be taught to see is to gain word and thought at once, and both true.

Got here half an hour ago and had a look, eyeballin' it, Sawyer said. It's murder, all right. Tell you something else - the sun went down, and it's as dark as the inside of a horses's ass out here. You're sure? Well, I've never actually been inside a horses's ass.

GRAY-EYED COLE SAT in his bedroom window, looking out over the road, a scoped Ruger 10/22 in his hands. Squirrel rifle. Below him, a quilt hung on the wire clothesline, airing out. Before the end of the day, the quilt would smell like early-summer fields, with a little gravel dust mixed in. A wonderful smell, a smell like home.

Uh-uh, not the way it works," Means said. He was a fleshy man, with nicotine-stained teeth and drooping cheeks. And, "Say, didn't you work for Virgil Flowers for a while, up in Minnesota?

Though wickedly aware of his surroundings, he didn't look around; looking around attracted the eye. People who saw him would ask themselves, "Why's that guy looking around like that?" He'd learned not to do it.

Clay pulled Lucas along and as they were approaching the back door, he called, "Madam Secretary . . . I need you to meet this guy." She stopped and turned and looked at Lucas and then Clay, did a quick price check on Lucas's suit, and asked, "How do you do?

She had eyes that Rembrandt would have painted.

satellite view. "They could