It is necessary to look at the results of observation objectively, because you, the experimenter, might like one result better than another.

No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.

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

It’s amazing how confused and distracted and misdirected so many people are.

I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express myself, I have to make up a story. Some people call it imagination. To me, it’s not imagination. It’s just a way of watching.

Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate… but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins.

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.

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.

It is never too late to give up our prejudices.

Consequences are unpitying.

Sometimes I think that there’s a fine line between impressionistic and messy.

The word ‚good‘ has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.

When I would hear the rabbi tell about some miracle such as a bush whose leaves were shaking but there wasn’t any wind, I would try to fit the miracle into the real world and explain it in terms of natural phenomena.

I dislike Allegory – the conscious and intentional allegory – yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language.

People often speak of God being even-handed. God is not even-handed. God is biased, in favor of the weak, of the despised.

I’m never a reliable narrator, unbiased or objective.

Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.

We shouldn’t have to be burdened with all the technicalities that come up from time to time with shrewd, smart lawyers interpreting what the laws or what the Constitution may or may not say.

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

Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I’ll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, ‚I’d like to write about that.‘ Those are two different ways of being approached by a poem, or approaching a poem.

We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. That is our permanent state.

It was morning; through the high window I saw the pure, bright blue of the sky as it hovered cheerfully over the long roofs of the neighboring houses. It too seemed full of joy, as if it had special plans, and had put on its finest clothes for the occasion.

You will always have partial points of view, and you’ll always have the story behind the story that hasn’t come out yet. And any form of journalism you’re involved with is going to be up against a biased viewpoint and partial knowledge.

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.

How strange that nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!

The eye sees what it brings the power to see.

I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool – and I’m not any of those – to say that I don’t write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears, who really will work at it, going behind what I seem to say. So I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues.

In order to arrive at knowledge of the motions of birds in the air, it is first necessary to acquire knowledge of the winds, which we will prove by the motions of water in itself, and this knowledge will be a step enabling us to arrive at the knowledge of beings that fly between the air and the wind.

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.

The most successful detectives owe their success to noticing small signs. Scouts are natural detectives and never let the smallest detail escape them. These small things are called by Scouts ‚Sign.‘

Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.

When written in Chinese, the word ‚crisis‘ is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.

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

If you make listening and observation your occupation you will gain much more than you can by talk.

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

I give infinite thanks to God, who has been pleased to make me the first observer of marvelous things.

I like gaps; all my stories have gaps. It seems this is the way people’s lives present themselves.

Who is richer? The man who is seen, but cannot see? Or the man who is not being seen, but can see?

He that raises a large family does, indeed, while he lives to observe them, stand a broader mark for sorrow; but then he stands a broader mark for pleasure too.

Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted.

What you put into life is what you get out of it.

My success rate speaks for itself.

Unless and until you inspire the people, you will not get results. Imposition will never give you the results. Inspiration will always give you the results.

I love to watch times change!

Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people’s actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable; and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first upon yourself.

Please think of me like an endangered species and just observe me quietly from far away. If you try to talk to me or touch me casually, I may get intimidated and bite you. So please be careful.

I have observed that society in general always seems to honor its living conformists and its dead troublemakers.

Even now I will go to, like, an industry event, and all the ladies will be over here and all the guys over here, and I will go to the guys‘ table and sit because I just feel I can have a much better conversation over there. And that’s automatic; it’s not prejudice.

For, if a good speaker, never so eloquent, does not see into the fact, and is not speaking the truth of that – is there a more horrid kind of object in creation?

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.

I’m not an analyzer. I’ve got a son that analyzes everything and everybody. But I don’t analyze people.

History is written by the victors.

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

The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears.

I had been told from school onwards that the best definition of a human being was man the tool-maker – yet I had just watched a chimp tool-maker in action. I remember that day as vividly as if it was yesterday.

Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.

I was out of my bed in one second, trembling with excitement, and I dashed to the door and into the adjoining room, where I could watch the streets below from the windows.

This is not writing at all. Indeed, I could say that Shakespeare surpasses literature altogether, if I knew what I meant.

I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe, that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction.

Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.