Quotes About Observation

My dear child, you can give it a long name if you like, but I'm an old-fashioned woman and I call it mother-wit, and it's so rare for a man to have it that if he does you write a book about him and call him Sherlock Holmes.

Peter! Were you looking for a horse-shoe? No; I was expecting the horse, but the shoe is a piece of pure, gorgeous luck. And observation. I found it. You did. And I could kiss you for it. You need not shrink and tremble. I am not going to do it. When I kiss you, it will be an important event -- one of those things which stand out among their surroundings like the first time you tasted li-chee. It will not be an unimportant sideshow attached to a detective investigation.

I say, I don't think the human frame is very thoughtfully constructed for this sleuthhound business. If one could go on all fours, or had eyes in ones knees, it would be a lot more practical'… 'What luck! Here's a deep, damp ditch on the other side, which I shall now proceed to fall into.' A slithering crash proclaimed that he had carried out his intention.

I think the most joyous thing in life is to loaf around and watch another bloke do a job of work. Look how popular are the men who dig up London with electric drills. Duke's son, cook's son, son of a hundred kings, people will stand there for hours on end, ear drums splitting. Why? Simply for the pleasure of being idle while watching other people work.

A man was taken to the Zoo and shown the giraffe. After gazing at it a little in silence: 'I don't believe it,' he said.

can I have the heart to fluster the flustered Thipps further—that's very difficult to say quickly—by appearing in a top-hat and frock-coat? I think not. Ten to one he will overlook my trousers and mistake me for the undertaker. A grey suit, I fancy, neat but not gaudy, with a hat to tone, suits my other self better. Exit the amateur of first editions; new motive introduced by solo bassoon; enter Sherlock Holmes, disguised as a walking gentleman.

Thank you. This line of salt is the beach. And this piece of bread is a rock at low-water level.' Wimsey twitched his chair closer to the table. 'And this salt-spoon,' he said, with childlike enjoyment, 'can be the body.

in the first part, the master-faculties are Observation and Memory, so in the second, the master-faculty is the Discursive Reason.

Yes, and look at the corpses. Place always reminds me of that old thing in Punch, you know—'Waiter, take away Lord Whatsisname, he's been dead two days.' Look at Old Ormsby there, snoring

Five minutes' practice before the glass every day, and you will soon acquire that vacant look so desirable for all rogues, detectives and Government officials.

Of course, [Miss Climpson,] you mustn't appear to be inquiring. You must find some good gossipy lady living in the neighborhood and just get her to talk in a natural way. You must pretend to be gossipy yourself – it's not in your nature, I know, but I'm sure you can make a little pretence about it – and find out all you can.

to tell the reader what the detective has observed and deduced – but to make the observations and deductions turn out to be incorrect, thus leading up to a carefully manufactured surprise packet in the last chapter.

The young man, whose reddish hair, long nose, and slightly sodden eyes gave him the appearance of a dissipated fox, greeted Wimsey with a disagreeable stare.

Hitherto, said Lord Peter, as they picked their painful way through the little wood on the trail of Gent's No. 10's, I have always maintained that those obliging criminals who strew their tracks with little articles of personal adornment--here he is, on a squashed fungus--were an invention of detective fiction for the benefit of the author. I see that I have still something to learn about my job.

facts are like cows. If you look them in the face hard enough they generally run away.

I'm sorry,' said Wimsey. 'It fascinates me. I think the most joyous thing in life is to loaf round and watch another bloke doing a job of work.

Oysters have beards, but they don't wag them.

Mr. Bunter was professionally accustomed to judge human beings by their behavior, not in great crises, but in the minor adjustments of daily life.

Now to me, Edith looks like something that would eat her young.

Observation If I don't drive around the park, I'm pretty sure to make my mark. If I'm in bed each night by ten, I may get back my looks again, If I abstain from fun and such, I'll probably amount to much, But I shall stay the way I am, Because I do not give a damn.

I think that the direction in which a writer should look is around.

I am at just that interesting age where i cannot keep out of things. I, too, must be in the know; I, too, must quote and sigh and nod wisely.

It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression, 'As pretty as an airport.

Did I do anything wrong today, he said, or has the world always been like this and I've been too wrapped up in myself to notice?