Quotes About Observation

Our children aren't stupid, and they're not naive. They see when adults around them act hypocritically. They see what we value and believe by our actions, not our words.

Being present to the way things are is not the same as accepting things as they are

Other people's houses were always fascinating. As soon as you went through the door for the first time, you got the feel of the atmosphere, and so discovered something about the personalities of the people who lived there.

Budgie lay slack-jawed on stained pillows, squinting in perplexity at the stack of plastic containers in one corner. It was like he'd been mildly puzzled to death.

White double bloodroot and blue scilla covered yards on my path to the store. The leather knuckles of milkweed were pushing from the earth. Dark hemlocks and pine were tipped with tiny tender green needles. People wandered about like toddlers, bending over to look at last year's dried grass. They watched the sky and examined the tags of newly planted city trees. And the air—it was a clean cold food.

she realized that here in Washington she'd seen people shot, a thing she'd never seen before, even on the reservation, a place considered savage by the rest of the country.

Outside, the snow drifted down the layers of air, flake by flake. Watching the snow glide down put Patrice into a trance

Father Damien maintained a neutral, kind, meditative watchfulness that had in it no hint of impatience.

Dad had finally allowed Cappy to come over that day. It was a grueling hot afternoon so we were inside playing Bionic Commando, quietly as we could, with the fan on. As always, my mother was sleeping. There was a soft tap. I answered the door, and there was Linda Wishkob, her bulging eyes, her tight blue uniform, her sweaty, dull, makeup-less face. Those long fingernails on the stubby fingers suddenly struck me as sinister, though they were painted an innocent pink

The more I come to know people, the better I like ravens.

She just said nothing. Nothing. She let the silence between them fill the air. Unlike other people, Omakayas had noticed, silence did not make Old Tallow uncomfortable. Now the warrior lady simply stood and smoked her pipe. The smoke drifted serenely in wavering fangs from each corner of her mouth. She was thinking.

WHEN I GROW UP I'M GOING TO FIND OUT EVERYTHING ABOUT EVERYBODY AND PUT IT ALL IN A BOOK. THE BOOK IS GOING TO BE CALLED SECRETS BY HARRIET M. WELSCH. I WILL ALSO HAVE PHOTOGRAPHS IN IT AND MAYBE SOME MEDICAL CHARTS IF I CAN GET THEM.

C'est cela l'exil, l'étranger, cette inexorable observation de l'existence telle qu'elle est vraiment pendant ces quelques heures, lucides, exceptionnelles dans la trame du temps humain, où les habitudes du pays précédent vous abandonnent, sans que les autres, les nouvelles, vous aient encore suffisamment abruti.

let's not forget, but make it our business to record the worst of the human viciousness we've seen without changing one word.

That's how I am! eyes peeled, scientific! first things first! the big ones! the small ones!...if they're going to behead you...for example!...you don't take your eyes of the guillotine!...look, the blade's dull! -Executioner! you shout, hey, you lazy fucker! don't you have anyone sharpening that thing? And the executioner scurries off, shit-assed and sheepish!

A wise man looks the other way.

Two years is the time it takes to perceive at one glance, a glance as sure as instinct, the ugliness that can come over a face, even one that was delicious in its day. For

A medida que te quedas en un sitio, las cosas y las personas se van destapando, pudriéndose, y se ponen a apestar a propósito para ti.

Two years is the time it takes to perceive at one glance, a glance as sure as instinct, the ugliness that can come over a face, even one that was delicious in its day.

If you ask me, flowers are like men … The bigger the dumber!

J'aurais bien voulu qu'ils fussent ailleurs mes pieds pour le moment, parce que de l'autre côté de la devanture, nous étions observés par les gens en file que nous venions de quitter dans la rue. Ils attendaient que nous eussions fini, nous, de bouffer, pour venir s'attabler à leur tour. C'est même à cet effet et pour les tenir en appétit que nous nous trouvions nous si bien éclairés et mis en valeur, à titre de publicité vivante.

artists look at what is, what they can see, and they draw it. Poets never trust the surface. They learn to look beneath, and to trust what they can't see.

The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real.

It is not every day one sees a soul-even of a poem