Quotes About Observation

This is how I learn most of what I know about my children and their friends: by sitting in the driver's seat and keeping quiet.

Jane Austen may not be the best writer, but she certainly writes about the best people. And by that I mean people just like me.

It was easy to figure out how people ought to behave out in the world if you never went out in the world yourself.

Being a reporter is as much a diagnosis as a job description.

She watched the

Once again she had the odd sense that she had been missing something, seeing the world flat when everything was rounded.

She, however, attentively watched my looks, and her artist's pride was gratified, no doubt, to read my heartfelt admiration in my eyes.

Habitual associates are known to exercise a great influence over each other's minds and manners. Those whose actions are forever before our eyes, whose words are ever in our ears, will naturally lead us, albeit against our will, slowly, gradually, imperceptibly, perhaps, to act and speak as they do.

When she was gone, I felt as if there was to be no more fun—though it is difficult to say what she had contributed to the hilarity of the party. No jests, and little laughter, had escaped her lips; but her smile had animated my mirth; a keen observation or a cheerful word from her had insensibly sharpened my wits, and thrown an interest over all that was done and said by the rest.

animadversions

this was 'Uncle Robson,' Mrs. Bloomfield's brother; a tall, self-sufficient fellow, with dark hair and sallow complexion like his sister, a nose that seemed to disdain the earth, and little grey eyes, frequently half-closed, with a mixture of real stupidity and affected contempt of all surrounding objects.

The young Winston Churchill used to stand in the doorway of a ballroom, rating female looks on the Helen of Troy basis: 'Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?' he would ask a friend standing with him, receiving in answer a murmured: 'Two hundred ships?' as a young woman passed. 'By no means,' Winston would respond. 'A covered sampan or a small gunboat at most.

Description is hard. Remember that all description is an opinion about the world. Find a place to stand.

He had beautiful manners. Which, if you ask me, was mostly a question of saying nothing, to anyone, ever.

There's something happening everyday, but I'm too tired and lazy to write it all down.

Who knows, perhaps he doesn't care about me at all and look at the others in just the same way.

stayed awake on purpose until half past eleven one evening in order to have a good look at the moon for once by myself.

I've been astonished, time and again, at such rudeness and most of all … at such stupidity (Mrs. van Daan).

By now I can recognize the women at a glance...with faces that are either grim or good-humored, depending on the mood of their husbands.

Alas, it has had to be that I am only able---except on a few rare occasions---to look at nature through dirty net curtains hanging before very dusty windows. And it's no pleasure looking through these any longer, because nature is just the one thing that really must be unadulterated.

Mother thinks that Mrs. van D. is too stupid for words, Margot that she's too unimportant, Pim that she's too ugly (literally and figuratively!), and after long observation (I'm never prejudiced at the beginning), I've come to the conclusion that she's all three of the above, and lots more besides. She has so many bad traits, why should I single out just one of them? PS. Will the reader please take into consideration that this story was written before the writter's fury had cooled?

It's really strange watching people walk past. They all seem to be in such a hurry that they nearly trip over their own feet. Those on bicycles whiz by so fast I can't even tell who's on the bike. The people in this neighborhood aren't particularly attractive to look at. The children especially are so dirty you wouldn't want to touch them with a ten-foot pole. Real slum kids with runny noses. I can hardly understand a word they say.

Quero ver as coisas com olhos novos e formar minha opinião.

Do you think ladies' eyebrows can communicate as well?" she asked. "No, they don't have sufficient thicketry," he said with authority. "Thicketry?" "Yes, that is the official term.