Quotes About Observation

Like the sunrise, some things just have to happen — and all you can really do is watch.

As a result, astronomy is sometimes called an observational science; we often make our tests by observing many samples of the kind of object we want to study and noting carefully how different samples vary.

People who have no emotional stake in a decision can see what needs to be done sooner.

And remember to ask questions, and notice everything, the orchids and the fruit flies, the children rummaging for food in piles of shit, and the ibis that flies across the moon at dusk. Let us go at least as far as the falls.

He felt as if he were a character in Henry James; he began to suspect he was to be that man to whom nothing whatsoever was to happen.

When I got home, the neighborhood would be so quiet that after a few weeks in other places, I'd want to yell at all the silent houses I drove past: What are you doing in there? Eating, shitting, watching TV—writing novels?

Truth is in the eye of the beholder, Doctor, I never tell the truth because I don't believe there is such a thing…" "You're not going to tell me." "But you don't need me to tell you, Doctor,., if you'll just notice the details. They're scattered like crumbs…

I got into pool tournaments when I was five, playing every weekend in competitions. Then one day I started playing snooker. I learnt by practising on my own, repeating the same shots again and again, and watching other players and copying what they did.

I played a lawyer once, and I had about three or four weeks before we shot, so I was able to go to court and watch lawyers at work. Some were good lawyers and some were bad lawyers, but it was essential. The more time you have to prepare, the better. Always.

I act as a sponge. I soak it up and squeeze it out in ink every two weeks.

I used to work as a tour guide for Americans. I'm convinced that even after four weeks on the road they had no idea where they had been. They were in a bubble.

I rode with four street-clothes cops in the East Village. I spent six weeks riding with them every day - in street clothes, with a vest underneath.

I can often tell when drawings are done from photographs, because you can tell what they miss out, what the camera misses out: usually weight and volume - there's a flatness to them.

When I shoot, I try to feel the body and the face and the weight of the actor, because the character until that moment is only in the pages of the script. And very often, I pull from the life of my actors. I'm always curious about what these characters and these actors are hiding about their lives.

I walk into a health club locker room and feel an immediate impulse toward scrutiny, the kneejerk measuring of self against other: 'That one has great thighs, this one's gained weight, who's thin, who's fat, how do I compare?'

Going to a museum is one of those inexplicably tiring things. You're not actually doing anything, more shifting your weight from room to room than walking. And yet it is one of the more tiring things one can do, no matter how thrilled you are by the exhibits.

Things on a very small scale behave like nothing that you have any direct experience about. They do not behave like waves, they do not behave like particles, they do not behave like clouds, or billiard balls, or weights on springs, or like anything that you have ever seen.

Everyone says I'm like the girl next door... Y'all must have really weird neighbors!

How weird it was to drive streets I knew so well. What a different perspective.

I've been to some kind of weird places in America. I've been to Idaho.

It's really weird watching the government watch me.

Now I'm president. I get to meet a lot of other company presidents. They're such weird people. I'm fascinated by them. I use some of them as enemy characters in our games.

I guess the biggest thing I had to get used to was people staring. At first it was like, 'Am I wearing something odd? Is there something on my face?' It was kind of weird because when I go to the grocery store, people, they're not necessarily coming up to me asking for a photo, they just... look at me.

I've spent so much time with iambic pentameter that I can now recognize it when I hear it in conversation or a movie - it's like a weird, useless superpower.