Quotes About Observation

There is so much beautiful in the world if you look around. You are looking only at the dirt under your feet, Jimmy. It's not good for you.

She's truly a woman?" said Aunt Gabbana, eyeing me shrewdly. "Of course," said Paula. "None of that's padding?" said Aunt Gabbana, nodding towards my chest. "Certainly not!" said Paula. "You'd be amazed at what some families try. She has nice wide hips, none of these narrow pelvises. Let me see your teeth, Agnes.

Does she ever see him watching her through the picture window? Most likely. Does she think he's a lecherous old man? Very probably. But he isn't exactly that. How to convey the mix of longing, wistfulness, and muted regret that he feels? His regret is that he isn't a lecherous old man, but he wishes he were. He wishes he still could be.

While I read, the Commander sits and watches me doing it, without speaking but also without taking his eyes off me. This watching is a curiously sexual act, and I feel undressed while he does it.

at a time, a quick move of the head, up and down, to the side and back. We have learned to see the world

there's often more in silences than in what is actually said – in the lips pressed together, the head turned away, the quick sideways glance. The shoulders drawn up as if carrying a heavy weight.

What would I have done if I had been my mother? She must have realized what was happening to me, or that something was. Even toward the beginning she must have noted my silences, my bitten fingers, the dark scabs on my lips where I'd pulled off patches of the skin. If it were happening now, to a child of my own, I would know what to do. But then? There were fewer choices, and a great deal less was said.

Like stage magic, knowledge before you knew it took place before your very eyes, but you were looking elsewhere.

He feels like saying that of course there's lint on Mr. Wiggly, or dust at any rate, or maybe rust; what does she expect, because as she is well aware Mr. Wiggly has been on the shelf for some time.

You must observe the risings of the Sun and the changings of the Moon, because to everything there is a season. On

His face is long and mournful, like a sheep's, but with the large full eyes of a dog, spaniel not terrier. His skin is pale and looks unwholesomely tender, like the skin under a scab.

I locate you on streets, in cities I've never seen, you walk against a background crowded with lifelike detail which crumbles and turns grey when I look too closely.

I hardly hear them any more because I hardly listen.

Galleries are frightening places, places of evaluation, of judgement.

There are a great many buttocks in this room. I am no longer used to them.

I always remembered what she looked like, the dried apple face, the silvery gray hair, the snapping blue eyes.

But to note is not to disparage. All observations of life are harsh, because life is. I lament that fact, but I cannot change it.

Then I remembered something I'd seen and hadn't noticed, at the time. It wasn't the army. It was some other army.

William sits opposite her, drinking water from a Murray's glass with a trace of lipstick on the rim. His fingers hold the glass, his other hand lies on the table, his neck comes out of his shirt collar, which is light green, and on top of that is his head. His eyes are blue and he has two of them. This is the sum total of William in the present tense.

At the subatomic level, you can't even say that matter exists. You can only say that it has a tendency to exist.' 'You're confusing Cordelia," I say. Cordelia has lit a cigarette and is looking out the window, where several squirrels are chasing one another around the lawn. She is paying no attention to any of this. Stephen considers Cordelia. "Cordelia has a tendency to exist," is what he says.

She would rather see for herself; she doesn't trust Tobias to interpret; she suspects him of holding things back.

There were the garden shears, the knitting needles; the world is full of weapons if you're looking for them. I should have paid attention

because God could see everything you did and also thought and most of these things annoyed him.

I'm developing a knack for this, I can sniff out hidden misery in others now with hardly any effort at all.