Quotes About Observation

I'm not involved, not involved, I repeated. It has been an article of my creed. The human condition being what it was, let them fight, let them love, let them murder, I would not be involved. My fellow journalists called themselves correspondents; I preferred the title of reporter. I wrote what I saw. I took no action – even an opinion is a kind of action.

One of the few remarks of age which I noticed in my aunt was her readiness to abandon one anecdote while it was yet unfinished for another.

The old women gossiped as they always had done, squatting on the floor outside the urinoir, carrying Fate in the lines of their faces as others on the palm.

The first day one watches to see whether a routine will emerge: it is a routine that makes home.

One always spoke of her like that in the third person as though she were not there. Sometimes she seemed invisible like peace.

Baines wasn't really happy; he was only watching happiness from close to instead of from far away

The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. You're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see—every scrap

could see so well the kind of house that has no mercy

It had been an article of my creed. The human condition being what it was, let them fight, let them love, let them murder, I would not be involved. My fellow journalists called themselves correspondents; I preferred the title of reporter. I wrote what I saw. I took no action—even an opinion is a kind of action.

He was a man one always forgot. To this day I cannot describe him, except his fatness and his powdered clean-shaven cheeks and his big laugh; all his identity escapes me - except that he was called Joe. There are some men whose names are always shortened.

They can print statistics and count the populations in hundreds of thousands, but to each man a city consists of no more than a few streets, a few houses, a few people.

If you don't see misery you don't believe in it

Decía ver las escenas que contaba como a través del ojo móvil de una cámara. Y la cámara seguía a los personajes, captaba rasgos y detalles significativos, iluminados o en penumbra, en primer plano o como figuras al fondo de la escena, entre la luz, el claroscuro y lo negro.

For writers it is always said that the first twenty years of life contain the whole of experience – the rest is observation – but I think it is equally true of us all.

You know, if you live in a place for long you cease to write about it.' 'Of course I always like to know what the man on the spot has to say,' he replied guardedly. 'And then check it with York?' 'Yes.

he distrusted any man who showed so little sign of employment.

I wrote what I saw. I took no action—even an opinion is a kind of action.

Phuong had kept us a table at the edge of the dance-floor and the orchestra was playing some tune which had been popular in Paris five years ago. Two Vietnamese couples were dancing, small, neat, aloof, with an air of civilization we couldn't match. (I recognized one, an accountant from the Banque de

I observe out of the corner of my eye that the man with the notebook is walking towards me and obviously intends to introduce himself. Why do human beings have to talk , I find myself wondering. Is it really necessary for us to make these noises?

I am less interested in ghosts than in people who see ghosts.

From the errors of others, a wise man corrects his own.

Me ha parecido ver a Killer Croc. Es... sólo es una gabardina verde. -Un error muy comprensible. El otro día confundí a una formidable monja con el Pingüino, señor.

If we who are honored with life do not perceive the obvious, then we are forced to live it again, around another corner, from another angle.

The horizon curved upward to both sides. Not good, not right. Horizons do not curve up.