Quotes About Observation

It's very strange to go to cities like London and New York. People walk so quickly, they seem to be in a hurry all the time. And you don't say 'Hi' to everyone you meet, and you don't smile to everyone you meet, because there's just so many. Which is also very strange.

My brother Trev went to the Professional Performing Arts School in New York, and he used to do his monologues and stuff and rehearse in our apartment. So I used to hear him all the time doing these things over and over and over. And when I was a little girl, I used to soak up everything - like anything anyone did, I soaked it up.

I once drove a pair of horses from New York to Vicksburg, and to this day I can almost map out that country as I saw it then, with its hills and valleys, villages and rivers. Yes, I naturally attribute something of my success in railroad building to the interest I take in such things.

I love Maira Kalman. She's an amazing illustrator and writer. I've loved her since I was in college, but when I moved to New York and experienced the same city she was drawing and writing about, I developed a whole new appreciation. Her work made me observe everything so much deeper and more joyfully.

I had gone to New York with no plan at all. I did a lot of jobs - barman, teacher, security guard, postman and construction worker - and I was meeting many eccentric characters, and they were saying funny things, which I always wrote down.

I lived with them in my studio in New York. And of course if I were doing that book today or even ten years, fifteen years later, I would have gone to where the wild ducks were and where I could study them - I would have gone to the country somewhere.

In New York, everybody looks great and is well dressed, but seeing someone in Ohio wearing Marc Jacobs is like spotting an owl in Central Park. Rare.

People-watching in New York while listening to Bach is kind of amazing.

The great thing about New York is that you don't have to set out to do anything. Whenever I go without the kids, I walk all day and see the most interesting stuff. There's always some kind of drama playing out.

One of my first observations about New York that I was so fascinated with was that you'd be at a stoplight, and you're with everybody; there's a homeless dude and some weird celebrity and a cop and someone who looks exactly like you.

As a New Yorker, I'm someone who lives on an island and looks across to America.

Most of my work - including everything from my own comics to the covers I've drawn for 'The New Yorker' - is the result of taking some personal experience or observation and then fictionalizing it to a degree.

I'm not a reporter but the 'New Yorker' treats everyone like a reporter.

I am free to confess that I am disappointed with the Yosemite valley. It seems only about one-half as grand as the American Fork canyon.

The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.

You can't fix stupid.

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.

In L.A., you have to drive; in New York, you can do it on foot. The variety, the potential, of people is in your face. Like any good creator, you want to steal everything.

I take the subway all the time here in New York. I love people watching and trying to figure out everybody's background, especially teenagers - they're so uninhibited when they display puppy love. I concoct stories in my mind: 'Are you guys like Romeo and Juliet?'

You guys know the way I play. And what's so ironic is, KG is the same way. I'm looking at him in practice and going, 'Wow, I'm always that guy,' you know?

I have definitely been curious and involved in the process; even as a young actor. I was always looking at where the camera was, what story it was telling. And as my experience grew, I wanted to know even more.

Most of my ideas come from drawing patterns across conversations I have with different types of people - technology investors, young fashion design students, a CEO. This variety is stimulating and offers many different perspectives on the things I am thinking about.

I do think that young children can spot a phony a mile away.

The British who arrived in the United States in the eighteen-thirties and forties had imagined the young republic as a wide-eyed adolescent, socially ungainly and politically gauche, but with some hint of promise.