I can walk through a hotel lobby and watch people at the desk and see what they’re doing. People don’t look at me. They don’t even know I’m there.

Let a man get up and say, Behold, this is the truth, and instantly I perceive a sandy cat filching a piece of fish in the background. Look, you have forgotten the cat, I say.

I’ve got nothing to hide.

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

That was the first time I saw a horse start from a kneeling position!

All through Latin America, there’s sharp condemnation of the criminal atrocities of Sept. 11. But it’s qualified by the observation that although these are horrible atrocities, they are not unfamiliar.

There is a need for aloneness, which I don’t think most people realise for an actor. It’s almost having certain kinds of secrets for yourself that you’ll let the whole world in on only for a moment, when you’re acting. But everybody is always tugging at you. They’d all like sort of a chunk of you.

Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything – to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tramcar, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby?

I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners.

People think you have to go through something to write about it, and you absolutely do not. You can write about, like, a shoe. It’s a story.

They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.

I’ve… been accused of being involved with every man I’m ever seen with or worked with. Maybe I have, maybe I ain’t. I never tell if I have.

I don’t think you get successful to brag and throw what you have in the world’s face. That’s all private.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

Certainly, if you look at human behavior around the world, you have to admit that we can be very aggressive.

At home I am a nice guy: but I don’t want the world to know. Humble people, I’ve found, don’t get very far.

There is no private life which has not been determined by a wider public life.

You have to be careful about how much you reveal to people that look up to you so much.

My apartment is my stage, and my bedroom is my stage – they’re just not stages you’re allowed to see.

I don’t like people looking at someone else’s image.

A true critic ought to dwell upon excellencies rather than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.

It’s against all of our policies for an application to ever share information with advertisers.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.

He that displays too often his wife and his wallet is in danger of having both of them borrowed.

Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.

The biggest guru-mantra is: never share your secrets with anybody. It will destroy you.

I never talk about my next project.

We do not know what the rules of the game are; all we are allowed to do is to watch the playing. Of course, if we watch long enough, we may eventually catch on to a few of the rules. The rules of the game are what we mean by fundamental physics.

A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?

My personal feelings are my personal feelings. I don’t want to express them with anyone except for a very few people. It doesn’t do any good. It really doesn’t.

I’m entirely interested in people, and also other creatures and beings, but especially in people, and I tend to read them by emotional field more than anything. So I have a special interest in what they’re thinking and who they are and who’s hiding behind those eyes and how did he get there, and what’s the story, really?

A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.

Comedians are sociologists. We’re pointing out stuff that the general public doesn’t even stop to think about, looking at life in slow-motion and questioning everything we see.

In my work, as a writer, I only photograph, in words, what I see.

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

Somebody just back of you while you are fishing is as bad as someone looking over your shoulder while you write a letter to your girl.

When you read, I’m sure you don’t realize that your eyes are going backwards and forwards and to this place and that place. Mine don’t do that.

I don’t want to write an autobiography because I would become public property with no privacy left.

The more you observe politics, the more you’ve got to admit that each party is worse than the other.

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

I don’t want to be on the Internet.

See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise, you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.

My choices, including those related to the day-to-day aspects of life, like the use of a modest car, are related to a spiritual discernment that responds to a need that arises from looking at things, at people and from reading the signs of the times. Discernment in the Lord guides me in my way of governing.

No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.

I do get recognized, but I must say Edinburgh is a fantastic city to live if you’re well-known. There is an innate respect for privacy in Edinburgh people, and I also think they’re used to seeing me walking around, so I don’t think I’m a very big deal.

I love reading people. I really enjoy watching, observing, and being able to figure out a person, the reason they wore that dress, the reason they smell the way they do.

I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do.

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

We are in a far better position to observe instincts in animals or in primitives than in ourselves. This is due to the fact that we have grown accustomed to scrutinizing our own actions and to seeking rational explanations for them.

Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.

See, people are watching you. Especially your children. They’re taking in every single thing you do. They are like video cameras with legs. And they are always in the record mode. They learn more from what you do than from what you say.

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?

No one knows who is listening, say nothing you would not wish put in the newspapers.

I put up my thumb and it blotted out the planet Earth.

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.

The wild Indian power of escaping observation, even where there is little or no cover to hide in, was probably slowly acquired in hard hunting and fighting lessons while trying to approach game, take enemies by surprise, or get safely away when compelled to retreat.

On the Internet, you think everything is going to be public.

It’s dangerous to read the Internet about yourself when you’re me. Or when you’re anyone in the public eye.

I don’t go off and sit down and try to write material, because then it’s contrived and forced. I just live my life, and I see things in a word or a situation or a concept, and it will create a joke for me.