Quotes About Observation

Sometimes I read about someone saying with great authority that animals have no intentions and no feelings, and I wonder, 'Doesn't this guy have a dog?'

People who get into animation tend to be kids. We don't have to grow up. But also, animators are great observers, and there's this childlike wonder and interest in the world, the observation of little things that happen in life.

I always used to wonder why American actors were getting fat, then I made a U.S. movie. I'm seeing all the food every day, and there's lots of waiting around because making an American movie is very slow.

I have made hundreds of dives in submersibles, with each dive holding the promise of seeing an organism or a behavior that no one has ever seen before. But I have always wondered about the animals and behaviors that we're not seeing because our bright lights and loud thrusters scare them away.

Each time I caught sight of geese swooping in formation across the sky, I wondered how our life below might look from their perspective, and imagined that, were they ever to indulge in such speculation, the high-rises might seem to them like firs massed in a grove.

I always wondered, like, you know how you go to the family barbecue, and your uncle is that funny guy that you laugh at because he's family? That's how I felt with 'Fighter and the Kid.' People would laugh at my stuff, but it was always tough for me to tell. I just needed to see if there was something going on.

A voyage to Europe in the summer of 1921 gave me the first opportunity of observing the wonderful blue opalescence of the Mediterranean Sea. It seemed not unlikely that the phenomenon owed its origin to the scattering of sunlight by the molecules of the water.

Anything looked at closely becomes wonderful.

The lens is the actor's best critic... showing his mind more clearly than on the stage. You can get wonderful cooperation out of the lens if you are true, but God help you if you are not.

I think you get to a point where you watch something just to enjoy it. I don't think it's really done so that you're supposed to feel, Oh, he's the most wonderful drummer. I think the whole lot is what's more enjoyable.

It's a wonderful narrative device to bring someone from the outside and look through his eyes if you want to describe the absurdity and preposterous reality that is accepted amongst the ones who are inside.

When I would visit my Granny as a little boy, we would play this game of closing our eyes and describing everything around us. The color of a tie. The shade of a cloth. It was really quite a wonderful way to learn how to look, to notice things and to appreciate what is around you.

I always thought that's the wonderful thing about filmmaking: people see things differently.

The wonderful thing about being a writer is that everything that happens is grist to the mill.

I find that the more I begin to look around, I see so much good that people do that goes unnoticed. So many wonderful things.

One of the most wonderful things for me is to watch somebody else perform, where I am the audience - I love this more than ever.

The problem is I'm not a good photographer. To be perfectly honest, I'm too shy. Not aggressive enough. Well, I'm not aggressive at all. I just loved to see wonderfully dressed women, and I still do. That's all there is to it.

Sometimes, I look out at nature and I think, 'Everything here is obeying my conjecture.' It's a wonderfully narcissistic feeling.

I'm so entranced by what unfolds in front of the camera. It seems wonderfully out of my control.

Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.

I feel like actors, having spent a lot of time on movie sets, tend to make decent directors, because they've been there, they know what they're doing, they've seen it done right, they've seen it done wrong, and they feel comfortable. There's not a lot of chin-scratching and wondering what your next move is.

I've been stocking up on dry shampoo. We don't have dry shampoo in the Philippines yet. I notice that here in the U.S., there are a lot of volumizing products, like salt spray. In the Philippines, the humidity can make your hair a bit flat, so I'm wondering, how come we don't have this back home?

I might find myself standing, transfixed, by the roadside, watching a sparrowhawk hunting among the bushes, astonished that other people could ignore it. But they might just as well be wondering how I could have failed to notice the new V6 Pentastar Sahara that just drove past.

Your protagonist is your reader's portal into the story. The more observant he or she can be, the more vivid will be the world you're creating. They don't have to be super-educated, they just have to be mentally active. Keep them looking, thinking, wondering, remembering.