Quotes About Observation

Every piece of writing... starts from what I call a grit... a sight or sound, a sentence or a happening that does not pass away... but quite inexplicably lodges in the mind.

Every tree and plant in the medouw seemed to be dancing, those with average eyes would see as fixed and still.

To understand humans, you must study them as a species of animal.

Come along, Mr. Iverson, you must be starved to death," said the dean. He saw my startled look and added dryly, "That's an observation, by the way. Not a decree.

Well, it often happens that people with good eyesight fail to see what is right in front of them. They have too much to take in, I suppose. Whereas people who cannot see (or see very little) have to take in only the essentials, whatever registers most tellingly on their remaining senses.

Well, it often happens that people with good eyesight fail to see what is right in front of them.

I have made no attempt at chronology. My writing hasn't changed much over the years. That's because I haven't changed. I am still the impractical dreamer that I was sixty years ago, when I decided that writing would be my vocation and my profession. I do not suffer from writer's block. I have only to sit down at my desk for the words to come tumbling on to my writing pad. And if an ant moves across my desk, I shall record its transit.

When I'm writing there's nobody watching me. Today, it's hard to find a profession where you're not being watched!

But my animals are real animals, and they behave as animals usually do. It's really the humans who do strange things. Animals are predictable. Humans, never.

Shake off that fit of depression. Go for a walk. Look at the busy people on the street, in the shops, in the fields. Are they depressed? They don't have time for it.

they will take you back to a time when life was not so full of care and there was time to stand and stare. But not for too long, or the train would leave without you!

Well, it often happens that people with good eyesight fail to see what is right in front of them. They have too much to take in, I suppose. Whereas people who cannot see (or see very little) have to take in only the essentials, whatever registers tellingly on their remaining senses.

William Henry Davies wrote these lines in 1911, and they ring true even over a century later. It is the truth; we really don't have the time to stand and stare. I always think of this when I don't have the luxury of time and am told to travel by airplanes, usually for book fairs and literature festivals. I wish I could take the train to every destination I travel to. There would be so much more to see, and many more stories to tell. The first

She did not go down the length of the train selling baskets, but came straight to the tea-stall; her dark eyes were suddenly filled with light. We said nothing for some time but we couldn't have been more eloquent.

Those were the days of simple living. You don't see two-rupee notes any more. You don't see walking sticks either. Hardly anyone walks.

The worst thing about being a tourist is having other tourists recognize you as a tourist.

Listen once in a while. It's amazing what you can hear.

It's like Kilroy only talking about Big Brother and there's no racism allowed.

We should qualify this observation to say that a constitution is more likely to last if it does not embody a misfit economic theory.

There are three types of parents—first, those who are always fussing after their children, controlling and correcting them and trying to make them walk in the same paths as themselves; then the infinitely preferable variety, who neglect their children altogether; and lastly, the ideal kind, who watch their children from a distance and are ready with encouragement and friendship when that is needed. (Viola, p. 35)

I prefer to be noticed, some day, first for my ideas and second for my good eye . . .

One stupid woman recognizes another one from a distance.

British rain was rarely that simple. For days on end, instead of falling, it simply hung around in the air like a wife waiting for you to notice she was sulking.

Looking down, the Israeli pilots could tell their troops from the Egyptians' when they saw ice-cream trucks, hot-dog vans, and laundry wagons navigating the desert.