Quotes About Observation

I'm particularly drawn to actors in their own little drama. I find it's that area I'm very alive to. And I don't encounter it that often. You have to be far from civilization, you have to be far from New York or London to find people who do that.

Not to make too much of a claim for poetry, but this is a question that goes to the moral heart of the business of any art: 'How do you see the world, and what right do you have to see the world in the way that you do?'

I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.

If you go and stop people at a supermarket and ask them for their receipt and say, 'Hey how much did you just spend?' middle class shoppers have no idea. The poor know what they just spent.

In Australia, it's people from Asian countries who most often recognise me. There are often people just looking at me at the supermarket, like they're shocked to think I would go to the supermarket.

Nobody is more capable to pointing out the unbalances in, let's say, supermarket prices than women.

I still get a few dirty looks over the racks in the supermarket, but nobody kicks me in the shins on Water Street. I've made sort of a point, apart from being a social dud, not to fraternize with the people I write about.

My own day-to-day observations confirm that many Americans can barely make change. At the supermarket where I buy groceries, I've watched more than one encounter at the cash register where both customer and clerk are befuddled at the prospect of double-checking the sums.

I don't see a superstar out there. I don't see Georges St-Pierre coming back.

I'm the kind of person who likes to hang out and observe what's going on in the streets, or in certain places. I used to do that a lot. But having to become an international superstar, I can't do that comfortably! But it's all positive, you know.

I love watching new acts find their footing. It's fun to watch them early on in their careers and get a gut feeling about who's going to be a superstar.

While acting with Amitabh Bachchan, the legend of Hindi cinema, and superstars like Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn and Akshay Kumar, I observed how they interpret cinema and make it an experience to cherish for their audiences.

Sometimes it's tough as a supporting character: you are on the sidelines, and you don't get to be there for most of the fun stuff. You are hearing about all the great stuff that is going on, but you never get to be a part of it.

I think being raised by a single mother put me on the outside, and I would watch my mother's married friends and think, 'Why does she put him down in public?' or, 'Why is he so rude to her?' It seemed to me that there were very few marriages where the couple were genuinely in a supportive, loving partnership.

I like to think I'm a listener, and I'm fascinated by observing people - I suppose you just lock that in.

You got to be street smart I suppose when you bowl in India. You can't bowl at the same pace at the same place. Guys will work you out.

It's like cooks don't watch cooking programmes - I suppose maybe comedians don't watch comedy shows.

I was always an outsider, always standing outside, observing and trying to figure things out. Which is exactly what you need to do as a writer, I suppose.

I was born abroad, but my parents were both English. Still, those few years of separation, and then coming back to England as an outsider, did give me an ability to see the country in a slightly detached way. I suppose I was made aware of what Englishness actually is because I only became immersed in it later in life.

I suppose I'm always looking for a sort of acuity of perception either in my characters or about my characters.

You don't have to know anything about art to appreciate it or to look at it. There aren't any hidden secrets or things that you're supposed to understand.

My head been on a swivel before I was rapping. So, do my head not supposed to be on the swivel? If you've been like this your whole life, do it stop because you got money now? Do it stop because everybody and their momma looking at you now?

I confidently affirm that the greater part of those who are supposed to have died of gout, have died of the medicine rather than the disease - a statement in which I am supported by observation.

My job is to notice echoes and notice resonances. Scientists are not supposed to do the same thing that cultural critics do.