Quotes About Observation

I woke And crept Like a cat On silent feet About my own house- To look At you While you were sleeping, Your hair Sprayed on the pillow, Your eyes Closed, Your body Safe and solitary, And my doors Shut for your safety And your comfort. I did this Thinking I was intruding Yet wanting to see The most beautiful thing That has ever been in my house.

The wasp sits on the porch of her paper castle.

How can we ever stop looking? How can we ever turn away?

Attention without feeling is only a report.

Because there is no substitute for vigorous and exact description, I would like to say how your eyes, at twilight, reflect, at the same time, the beauty of the world, and its crimes.

Yes, a person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem. But first we must watch her as she stares down at her labor, which is dull enough.

What lay on the road was no mere handful of snake. It was the copperhead at last, golden under the street lamp. I hope to see everything in this world before I die.

The Instant Today one small snake lay, looped and solitary in the high grass, it swirled to look, didn't like what it saw and was gone in two pulses forward and with no sound at all, only two taps, in disarray, from that other shy one, my heart.

If you notice anything, it leads you to notice more and more.

the black fox that lies down to sleep beneath you, the moon staring with her bone-white eye

Thus the great ones (my great ones, who may not be the same as your great ones) have taught me -- to observe with passion, to think with patience, to live always care-ingly.

When one writes the last apple on the tree, or the one small peach as pink as dawn, one is beginning to deal with particulars - to develop texture... Such texture is vital to all poetry. It is what makes the poem an experience, something much more than mere statement.

It wasn't about the bird, it was something about the way stone stays mute and put, whatever goes flashing by.

To enjoy, to question—never to assume, or trample. Thus the great ones (my great ones, who may not be the same as your great ones) have taught me—to observe with passion, to think with patience, to live always care-ingly.

Thus the great ones (my great ones, who may not be the same as your great ones) have taught me - to observe with passion, to think with patience, to live always caringly.

The one thing he is adamant about is that we should look - we must look - for that is the liquor of life, that brooding upon issues, that attention to thought even as we weed the garden or milk the cow.

If you notice anything, it leads you to notice more and more. And anyway I was so full of energy. I was always running around, looking at this and that. If I stopped the pain was unbearable. If I stopped and thought, maybe the world can't be saved, the pain was unbearable.

It is what I was born for— to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this soft world— to instruct myself over and over in joy, and acclamation. Nor am I talking about the exceptional, the fearful, the dreadful, the very extravagant— but of the ordinary, the common, the very drab, the daily presentations.

To be a truly great artist, you must learn to combine your observations with your imagination.

Even at a distance, Jack thought the commander-in-chief looked familiar, very familiar. But he couldn't figure out

I get ideas for my paintings from everything! I look at a watermark on a wall and see an old woman's face. I look at a food stain on my tablecloth and see a horse! I study rain puddles and rocks and see oceans and mountains! (p.36)

a great artist has to combine observation with imagination. (p. 78)

I am not, by trade or character, a spotlight operator. I'm the goober with a flashlight, stumbling into corners and crannies, not looking for anything specific but knowing when I've found it.

I remember watching Morin walk away from me, the endearing gait and the butt that got lubed for science, and thinking, 'Oh my god, they're just people.