Quotes About Observation

there is always more to be learned and noticed, so many characters, so many changes of scene, so many words...

It was not her way to make a conspicuous entry into anyone's life, but towards the end of that week Sebastian said rather sourly: "You and mummy seem very thick," and I realized that in fact I was being drawn into intimacy by swift, imperceptible stages, for she was impatient of any human relationship that fell short of it.

Oh, I shouldn't try to teach them anything, not just yet, anyway. Just keep them quiet.

Ah well, to the journalist every country is rich.

There was one insect which buzzed in a particular manner. Listen, said Mr Bain one day, that is most interesting. It is what we call the 'six o'clock beetle', because he always makes that noise at exactly six o'clock. But it is now quarter past four. Yes, that is what is so interesting. At one time and another in the country I heard the six o'clock beetle at every hour of the day and night.

Even though the software component of a technology is often not so easy to observe, we should not forget that technology almost always represents a mixture of hardware and software aspects. According to our definition, technology is a means of uncertainty reduction that is made possible by information about the cause-effect relationships on which the technology is based.

Amory selected a blade of grass and nibbled at it scientifically.

Before I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation– the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the impossible, come true.

It makes me sad because I've never seen such--such beautiful shirts before.

It's a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people. You can hold your tongue, and, moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own so that everybody else is so blind that they don't see or care.

I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores.

As he took her hand she saw him look her over from head to foot, a gesture she recognized and that made her feel at home, but gave her always a faint feeling of superiority to whoever made it. If her person was property she could exercise whatever advantage was inherent in its ownership.

he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass.

I'll never be a poet,' said Amory as he finished. 'I'm not enough of a sensualist really; there are only a few obvious things that I notice as primarily beautiful: women, spring evenings, music at night, the sea; I don't catch the subtle things like 'silver-snarling trumpets.' I may turn out an intellectual, but I'll never right anything but mediocre poetry.

I see you're looking at my cuff buttons. I hadn't been looking at them, but I did now.

In two weeks it'll be the longest day in the year... Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.

As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host but the two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way and denied so vehemently an knowledge of his movements that I slunk off in the direction of the cocktail table--the only place in the garden where a single man could linger without looking purposeless and alone.

I wanted to get out and walk eastward toward the park through the soft twilight, but each time I tried to go I became entangled in some wild, strident argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair. Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets... I saw him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without.

I just think of people, she continued, whether they seem right where they are and fit into a picture. I don't mind if they don't do anything. I don't see why they should; in fact it always astonishes me when people do anything.

I always watch for the longest day in the year and then I miss it.

My God, she's good-looking! said Mr. Sandwood, who was just over thirty. Good-looking! cried Mr. Hedrick contemptuously, she always looks as if she wanted to be kissed! Turning those big cow-eyes on every calf in town! It was doubtful if Mr. Hedrick intended a reference to the maternal instinct.

I'm very damn wet!' he said aloud to the sundial.

She had achieved the elusiveness that gives hidden significance to the least significant remarks.

I can never judge a man while he's talking