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

In 7th grade, I believe, I wrote my first rap song. It was about everything I was seeing, everything that was going on around me.

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.

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

We tend to mistake music for the physical object.

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.

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

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.

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

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

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.

If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.

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.

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.

There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man’s own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health.

How pathetically scanty my self-knowledge is compared with, say, my knowledge of my room. There is no such thing as observation of the inner world, as there is of the outer world.

The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.

Every now and then I will see a word as if for the first time, and suddenly appreciate that Evian is ‚naive‘ spelled backward, or that Bosnia is an anagram of ‚bonsai.‘

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

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.

I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here.

I love to go to the zoo. But not on Sunday. I don’t like to see the people making fun of the animals, when it should be the other way around.

I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.

My protest about the post exchange seating bore some results. More seats were allocated for blacks, but there were still separate sections for blacks and for whites. At least I had made my men realize that something could be accomplished by speaking out, and I hoped they would be less resigned to unjust conditions.

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

There is no object so large but that at a great distance from the eye it does not appear smaller than a smaller object near.

Those parts of history that would undermine the vision of the Left – which prevails in our education system from elementary school to postgraduate study – are not likely to get much attention.

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

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

May we do good everywhere as we have opportunity, and results will not be wanting!

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

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

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.

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.

I can’t play bridge. I don’t play tennis. All those things that people learn, and I admire, there hasn’t seemed time for. But what there is time for is looking out the window.

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?

Look at the means which a man employs, consider his motives, observe his pleasures. A man simply cannot conceal himself!

It is indeed a matter of great difficulty to discover, and effectually to distinguish, the true motions of particular bodies from the apparent because the parts of that immovable space, in which those motions are performed, do by no means come under the observation of our senses.

It is not Kafka’s fault that his wonderful writings have lately turned into a fad, and are read by people who have neither the ability nor the desire to absorb literature.

Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.

To know the laws is not to memorize their letter but to grasp their full force and meaning.

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.

Kids are watching us. I experience it every single day. They hang on my every word, what I wear, what I say.

Humans cannot avoid trying to influence others. Everything we say or do is examined and interpreted by others for clues as to our intentions.

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

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?

Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.

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

It’s not about charisma and personality, it’s about results and products and those very bedrock things that are why people at Apple and outside of Apple are getting more excited about the company and what Apple stands for and what its potential is to contribute to the industry.

Though silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial, either.

Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?

My success rate speaks for itself.

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

The stories are not autobiographical, but they’re personal in that way. I seem to know only the things that I’ve learned. Probably some things through observation, but what I feel I know surely is personal.

When I was a young man, Dirac was my hero. He made a breakthrough, a new method of doing physics. He had the courage to simply guess at the form of an equation, the equation we now call the Dirac equation, and to try to interpret it afterwards.

Sometimes I write about my own life. And sometimes I write about situations I see my friends going through. Sometimes I write about a scene I saw in a movie. I take inspiration from all different places.

Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.

Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.

There’s nothing hippie about my picture of Christ. The Gospels paint a picture of a very demanding, sometimes divisive love, but love it is.

The eyes like sentinel occupy the highest place in the body.