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

People only see what they are prepared to see.

To me, comedy is just twisting reality. It’s commenting or observing or twisting life.

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.

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

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.

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

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

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.

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

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.‘

A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

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

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.

If you look at me close enough, there’s a small resemblance to a chicken nugget. I don’t know if it’s my skin texture or my hair, but the resemblance is definitely there.

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.

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 eye sees what it brings the power to see.

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

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.

People talk to people who perceive nothing, who have open eyes and see nothing; they shall talk to them and receive no answer; they shall adore those who have ears and hear nothing; they shall burn lamps for those who do not see.

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.

An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.

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.

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

Part of the reason for the ugliness of adults, in a child’s eyes, is that the child is usually looking upwards, and few faces are at their best when seen from below.

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.

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

It’s not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it’s the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses.

It’s funny; recently I’ve started to notice people’s impersonations of me, and it’s basically like a hyperactive child.

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.

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.

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

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

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.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

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

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.

That the divided but contiguous particles of bodies may be separated from one another is a matter of observation; and, in the particles that remain undivided, our minds are able to distinguish yet lesser parts, as is mathematically demonstrated.

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.

Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon.

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

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.

Take care to sell your horse before he dies. The art of life is passing losses on.

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.

I became a people-watcher when I lost all my friends when I was 12.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.

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.‘