Observing Quotes

“Of two sisters
one is always the watcher,
one the dancer.”
― Louise Glück, Descending Figure

“I am a free soul, singing my heart out by myself no matter where I go and I call strangers my friends because I learn things and find ways to fit them into my own world. I hear what people say, rearrange it, take away and tear apart until it finds value in my reality and there I make it work. I find spaces in between the cracks and cuts where it feels empty
and there I make it work.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“I think one can tell a lot about a person from the way he chooses to let the stub of his cigarette burn out...”
― Sanhita Baruah

“I operate under the assumption that people don't notice the good in me. That's just how things always seem to play out. I get blamed, while con-artist kids like Venus, and Camille, and Gemma get believed. But the rescue lady noticed. In the background, just observing, she noticed.”
― Wendelin Van Draanen, Runaway

“Writers have this schizophrenic ability to both participate in their lives and, at the same time, observe themselves participating in their lives.”
― Edward Albee, Three Tall Women

“Somebody is observing my writings, I know that.
That's one reason why I keep reading and writing.”
― Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity

“The off curve of her ear was what he had noticed first. A roundness echoed in her cheeks and her mouth. Then it was the way her body looked solid, as though meant to take up space and weight in the world. When she moved, she left behind footprints in the forest floor.

Because she didn't know how to glide silently, to disturb no leaf of branch. He felt smug to see how bad she was at even such an easy thing.

It was only later that it disturbed him to think back on the shape of her boot in the soil, as though she was the only real thing in a land of ghosts.

He had seen her before, he supposed. But at the palace school, he really looked. He noted her skirts, spattered with mud, and her hair ribbons, partially undone. He saw her twin sister, her double, as though one of them were a changeling child and not human at all. He saw the way they whispered together while they ate, smiling over private jokes. He saw the way they answered the instructors, as though they had any right to this knowledge, had any right to be sitting among their betters. To occasionally better their betters with those answers. And the one girl was good with a sword, instructed personally by the Grand General, as though she was not some by-blow of a faithless wife.”
― Holly Black, How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“However, the fact that we must love our parents cannot limit us from observing and identifying their daily behaviours; both negative and positive.”
― Mwanandeke Kindembo, Treatise Upon The Misconceptions of Narcissism

“Mataku merenung alam. Menunggu datangnya syair”
― Hamka, Kenang-Kenangan Hidup

“One thing a Soviet upbringing taught you was to pay attention.”
― Yelena Akhtiorskaya, Panic in a Suitcase

“She is pretty, she has noticed i am gazing in her direction but i am not looking at, i am just observing the distance that separates me from love.”
― Alain Bremond-Torrent, "Darling, it's not only about sex"

“There was this thin meandering creek that wound past the old summer cottage. And sliding down the slight bank, I would gently pull aside the scattering of stalky weeds and elegant wildflowers that edged the flowing rivulet of crystalline water. And there, in that oh so tiny and forgotten place, a whole world of living things danced in the waters, frolicked on the scattering of assorted pebbles, and gingerly crawled on the emerald moss that generously lined both banks. And staring at the wonder of that tiny, forgotten place, I thought that life is not about grand destinations. Rather, it’s about realizing that we are already in a destination.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“If I’m going to write something that moves the masses and seizes one’s soul, I have to force myself to sit and watch life long before I ever attempt to sit and write about it. For without the watching the writing doesn’t matter.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“However much you might watch me I should be watching you more.”
― Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

“If you wanna speak like the gods, your ear must be open as the sky.”
― Curtis Tyrone Jones

“The odd curve of her ear was what he had noticed first. A roundness echoed in her cheeks and her mouth. Then it was the way her body looked solid, as though meant to take up space and weight in the world. When she moved, she left behind footprints in the forest floor.

Because she didn't know how to glide silently, to disturb no leaf of branch. He felt smug to see how bad she was at even such an easy thing.

It was only later that it disturbed him to think back on the shape of her boot in the soil, as though she was the only real thing in a land of ghosts.

He had seen her before, he supposed. But at the palace school, he really looked. He noted her skirts, spattered with mud, and her hair ribbons, partially undone. He saw her twin sister, her double, as though one of them were a changeling child and not human at all. He saw the way they whispered together while they ate, smiling over private jokes. He saw the way they answered the instructors, as though they had any right to this knowledge, had any right to be sitting among their betters. To occasionally better their betters with those answers. And the one girl was good with a sword, instructed personally by the Grand General, as though she was not some by-blow of a faithless wife.”
― Holly Black, How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“I have spent over a decade observing the government and concluded they are willfully incompetent in the health and safety of their citizens.”
― Steven Magee

“After informing the management team at Dartmouth College that I was keeping daily records of the behavioral problems I was observing in all staff that I supervised, they insisted those records be destroyed.”
― Steven Magee

“And then I think, maybe that’s what we are. An accidental spectacle.”
― Tracy K. Smith

“It is important for managers that are observing behavioral problems in their workers to investigate them, even if the upper management team wants to cover them up.”
― Steven Magee

“Young children remind us how to see.”
― Wayne Gerard Trotman

“She wanted to know me. She wanted to know the type of a man, I was. She would look at me and try to fathom the was I do certain things. Many a times, I saw her observing me when I was busy doing something else. And the moment when our eyes met, she would have this desperate look in her eyes which told me that she was trying really hard to read the thoughts running in my mind.”
― Avijeet Das

“She wanted to know me. She wanted to know the type of a man, I was. She would look at me and try to fathom the way I do certain things. Many a times, I saw her observing me when I was busy doing something else. And the moment when our eyes met, she would have this desperate look in her eyes which told me that she was trying really hard to read the thoughts running in my mind.”
― Avijeet Das

“The" prospect-refuge "theory states that we have an inborn desire for prospect (in the sense of an extended view onto something) so that we can observe our surroundings without being seen by others.”
― Oliver Heath, Design A Healthy Home: 100 ways to transform your space for physical and mental wellbeing

“The rest of my life will be spent observing the progression of the underlying damage hypoxia has done to me. Residing below the 1,000 feet threshold where altitude sickness occurs in me is no magic cure for Magee’s Disease. It helps, but the underlying environmental biological damage is still there.”
― Steven Magee, Magee’s Disease

“In the city, one is alone because the world is made up of strangers, and to be a stranger surrounded by strangers, to walk along silently bearing one's secrets and imagining those of the people one passes, is among the starkest of luxuries. This uncharted identity with its illiminable possibilities is one of the distinctive qualities of urban living, a liberatory state for those who come to emansipate themselves from family and community expectation, to experiment with subculture and identity. It is an observer's state, cool, withdrawn, with senses sharpened, a good state for anybody who needs to reflect or create. In small doses melancholy, alienation, and introspection are among life's most refined pleasures.”
― Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

“Observations often tell you more about the observer than the observed. - Chris Geiger”
― Chris Geiger, The Cancer Survivors Club: A Collection of Inspirational and Uplifting Stories

“Observing the hurricane Ian disaster on Twitter became a rich source to develop quotations from.”
― Steven Magee

“While nature is free for all to roam, it costs only your attention.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Night of a Thousand Thoughts

“By the Cauldron,' a familiar male voice said beside Cassian, and he turned to find Lucien in the archway to the training area.... 'Feyre said she was training, but I hadn't realised she was... well, training.'
...
'Did you think she was filing her nails?'

Lucien's mechanical eye clicked. His face tightened as Nesta threw a spectacular left hook into the wood beam. It shuddered with the impact. 'I wonder if there are some things that should not be awoken,' he murmured.

Cassian cut him a glare. 'Mind your own business, fireling.'

Lucien just watched Nesta attack, his golden skin a little pale.

'Why are you here?' Cassian asked, unable to help the sharpness. 'Where's Elain?'

'I am not always in the city to see my mate.' The last two words dripped with discomfort. 'And I came up here because Feyre said I should. I need to kill a few hours before I'm to meet with her and Rhys. She thought I might enjoy seeing Nesta at work.'

'She's not a carnival attraction,' Cassian said through his teeth.

'It's not for entertainment.' Lucien's red hair gleamed in the dimness of the rainy day. 'I think Feyre wanted a progress assessment from someone who hasn't seen her in a while.

'And?' Cassian bit out.

Lucien threw him a withering look. 'I'm not your enemy, you know. You can drop the aggressive brute act.'

Cassian gave him a grin that didn't meet his eyes. 'Who says it's an act?'

Lucien let out a long sigh. 'Very well.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A ​Court of Silver Flames