Quotes About Observation

When I write an original story I write about people I know first-hand and situations I'm familiar with. I don't write stories about the nineteenth century.

I think of myself as an Indian comedian, but I've had British and American schooling. I always had this feeling of not fitting in anywhere, of observing situations from the outside.

Social situations, for me - it's very natural for me to be an observer. That's where I'm most comfortable. I observe things.

I feel like there's already a written narrative going on everywhere. All the different situations and realities you're in, like words floating by. It's something that I didn't start thinking about until recently, but you can hitch that ride, that narrative that's already been created. You just have to read it and write it down.

You see people in different situations behaving in very different ways. That can only benefit you as an actor.

I just do jokes about real situations, pure observation.

I don't have children, but when I meet my friends' kids at six months old, and then I don't see them again for another six months, the changes are drastic. But if you've seen them every day, the changes are less shocking.

People look at my six days in the week to see what I mean on the seventh.

Cameramen are among the most extraordinarily able and competent people I know. They have to have an insight into natural history that gives them a sixth sense of what the creature is going to do, so they can be ready to follow.

Little Haley Joel Osment in 'The Sixth Sense' can see dead people. Well, I can see racist people.

Over the years, I paid careful attention in client meetings and jotted down things that quite didn't make sense. And I had the courage to raise questions and to be skeptical when something didn't add up.

People are always alert to any change and skeptical by nature.

Sketch comes from everyday life. You can see someone on the street, and it can turn into a five-minute sketch.

Because I was so quiet, my father let me spend hours and hours next to him while he would sketch. Everyone else was always asking things from him. I wasn't asking anything. I was just happy to be there.

You can't do sketches enough. Sketch everything and keep your curiosity fresh.

Monty Python never directly said, 'We're liberals' - they just did their sketches, and you had to figure it out. Generally, they were anti-establishment, of course, making fun of the people in power. I think, comedians, that's their job - pointing out what other people might not notice and going, 'Yoo-hoo, over here.'

I always carry a sketchbook around with me, and I sketch whenever I can... I might be in a financial review and be sketching because I find that I actually listen better when I sketch. Truth be told, there are probably more sketches in my books than there are written notes.

Sketching in general - anywhere, not just in Gitmo, but in life, in the world - is a profoundly disruptive act. Because you're creating something when you're kind of expected to consume or sit passively. I've always sketched things as a way to get into them, whether it was a fancy nightclub or, you know, to have kids think I was cool, whatever.

I would describe my comedy as my skewed comic perception of life.

It is a lamentable observation that because of the way our laws are skewed toward the plaintiff, London has become the libel capital of the world.

What we found while making Milo, is that part of the skill of designing this whole new experience is in making people comfortable with the fact that they can be seen.

You can tell when people don't like you. Especially being a black man born and raised in the South in America, you can tell when people don't like you. It's just a skill that you get.

Good liars are skilled at reading others well, putting them at ease, managing their own emotions, and intuitively sensing how others perceive them.

There are a lot of really good skills you get from doing journalism - it completely changed my world and how I interact with other people.