Quotes About Observation

She watches the people through the sooted panes. They walk slower than they do when she reports to work and when she leaves work, and differently still from weekend strolling. They are the tin men and rag dolls who wake after hours in the toy store.

That's true," Turner said. "That doesn't mean I can't see how it works. Maybe I see things more clearly because of it." He made a face as the soap powder gave him a kick. "The key to in here is the same as surviving out there—you got to see how people act, and then you got to figure out how to get around them like an obstacle course. If you want to walk out of here.

Elwood never ceased to marvel how you could walk around and get used to seeing only a fraction of the world. Not knowing you only saw a sliver of the real thing.

favored on her visits. Up close, it was plain

And if you could make a study of the dead, Stevens thought from time to time, you could make a study of the living, and make them testify as no cadaver could.

If you want to see what this nation is all about, you have to ride the rails. Look outside as you speed through, and you'll find the true face of America.

You have to stand up real close to the posters to see the swirls, and even then they're easy to miss: Lila Mae had to have Jimmy point them out to her. Horns, boiling cysts, the occasional cussword inked in across Chancre's slat teeth—they add up after a while, somehow more personal and meaningful than the usual cartoons and pinups of office homesteading.

If you want to see what this nation is all about, I always say, you have to ride the rails. Look outside as you speed through, and you'll find the true face of America.' He slapped the wall of the boxcar as a signal. The train lurched forward.

it trains the kid in question to determine when people in the corner of his eye are talking about him and when they are not, a useful skill in later life when sorting out bona-fide persecution from perceived persecution, the this-is-actually-happening from the mere paranoid manifestation

Lumbly'nin sözleri yeniden akl?na geldi: 'Bu ülkenin nas?l bir yer olduÄŸunu öÄŸrenmek istiyorsan?z demiryolunu kullan?n derim ben hep. H?zla giderken d??ar? bakarsan?z, Amerika'n?n gerçek yüzünü görürsünüz.' Åžaka yapm??t? adam, demek ki. Yolculuklar? s?ras?nda pencereden bak?nca yaln?zca karanl??? görmüÅŸtü Cora, hep de öyle olacakt?.

Maynard Spencer was a white man in his late fifties, bits of silver in his cropped black hair. A real "crack of dawner," as Harriet used to say, who moved with a deliberate air, as if he rehearsed everything in front of a mirror.

If you want to see what this nation is all about, I always say, you have to ride the rails. Look outside as you speed through, and you'll find the true face of America.

The second thing Elwood noticed was the boy's eerie sense of self. The mess hall was loud with the rumble and roil of juvenile activity, but this boy bobbed in his own pocket of calm.

Her price fluctuated. When you are sold that many times, the world is teaching you to pay attention.

Step back and the world is a classroom if need be.

Chester Miller was in his late fifties, slim-built except for his belly, which perched on his belt like an egg. A little sleepy.

She flickered then, as Ruby had that morning, and he saw her as she was on that rainy afternoon under his umbrella: almond-shaped dark eyes under long lashes, delicate in her pink cardigan, edges of her mouth upturned at one of her strange jokes. Unaware of the effect she had on people. On him, all these years later.

Now he thought about the poor man and his last view of earth: the groove of rust worn from the tub's leaky faucet, like the ooze from a wound.

Carney spied a patrolman across the street, drinking a Coca-Cola through a straw with bovine serenity. For a moment, he entertained the ridiculous proposition of a Negro calling a cop to complain he was being threatened by two white men.

He was a rube, but he was no tourist.

They entered the wild country. Broken fences. Ruined castles. Stretches of bogland. Wooded headlands. Turfsmoke rose from cabins, thin and mean. On the muddy paths, they glimpsed moving rags. The rags seemed more animate than the bodies within. As they passed, the families regarded them. The children appeared marooned with hunger.

Rami often felt that there were nine or ten Israelis inside him, fighting. The conflicted one. The shamed one. The enamored one. The bereaved one. The one who marveled at the blimp's invention. The one who knew the blimp was watching. The one watching back. The one who wanted to be watched. The anarchist. The protester. The one sick and tired of all the seeing.

Rain fell more steadily now. Grey and unrelenting. Nobody seemed to notice. Rain on the puddles. Rain on the high brickwork. Rain on the slate roofs. Rain on the rain itself.

People can look different from hour to hour depending on the angle of daylight.