Quotes About Observation

The [Value at Risk model] was like a faulty speedometer, which is arguably worse than no speedometer at all. If you place too much faith in the broken speedometer, you will be oblivious to other signs that your speed is unsafe. In contrast, if there is no speedometer at all, you have no choice but to look around for clues as to how fast you are really going.

Probability tells us that any outlier—an observation that is particularly far from the mean in one direction or the other—is likely to be followed by outcomes that are more consistent with the long-term average.

L. Mencken once noted that a wealthy man is a man who earns $100 a year more than his wife's sister's husband. Some economists have belatedly begun to believe that he was on to something.

Statistics cannot prove anything with certainty. Instead, the power of statistical inference derives from observing some pattern or outcome and then using probability to determine the most likely explanation for that outcome.

I have often felt that I am being watched. That my life is being witnessed by unseen forces, that adjustments are made as these forces see fit, to thwart me, to humiliate me.

He felt like weeping at the wrenching pleasure he derived from studying the fall of her hair

I didn't want to pry, yet I wanted to know how this frosted-blond petite woman murdered her sister and where in her body she was storing the two sandwiches she had just demolished. She couldn't have weighed more than one hundred pounds and she was about five-foot-six. This woman/ killer was a testament to my theory that the crazier you are, the more calories you burn. That's why psychos are always so skinny.

This was just the way I imagined myself around Nancy Grace--available, yet distant.

Hilarious, insightful, and smart. A must-read for anyone who wears clothes.

Jealousy is a rather enjoyable emotion to watch.

Oh, the most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when I observe the world, I don't expect to see it just like I was seeing the fellow who lives in the next room. There is this complexity which seems to me to be part of the meaning of existence and everything we value.

When mother-cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth

As our fathers said, you can tell a ripe corn by its look.

But the eye is very greedy and will steal a look at something its owner has no wish to see.

Things are always like that. Our eye sees something; we take a stone and aim at it. But the stone rarely succeeds like the eye in hitting the mark.

In "open-source" software, where anyone can contribute to a project, the mantra is "With enough eyes, all bugs are trivial." Likewise for astronomy: With enough eyes, we'll see the asteroid with our name on it—and early enough to do something about it.

It was Aldous Huxley who observed, "Every man's memory is his private literature.

Signs, after all, were everywhere; it was just a question of knowing how to read them.

She talks and talks because whenever she is silent she finds herself looking at him and her breath grows a little short.

scopaesthesia. The idea was you could sense when you were being watched. It was a cousin of scopophobia: the fear of being watched.

It was Pidge's observation that toleration rather than love was what kept her parents together. They were yoked like horses to a plow and they moved through life pulling something neither could see that kept them a safe distances from each other. There was something both admirable and sad in their marital work ethic, and Pidge promised herself she wouldn't settle like they had. It was a promise she broke.

Someone said, "Hey, Wanda," and I deduced that this was Wanda. This is why I am such a good reporter.

You never see your own face until you look into something reflecting it, but it sure is easy to see the flaws in everyone else.

Sometimes it's hard to tell if a joke is working or not for the first couple of minutes.