Observant Quotes - Page 3

• The Bactrian have two humps; the Arabian one only. They are swift in battle and most useful to carry burdens. This animal is extremely observant of rule and measure, for it will not move if it has a greater weight than it is used to, and if it is taken too far it does the same, and suddenly stops and so the merchants are obliged to lodge there.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Moving, Taken, Animal

  Leonardo (da Vinci) (1956). “The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci”, p.431, Prabhat Prakashan

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• Very few writers understand the complex history and maddening social order of the Mississippi Delta. For Steve Yarbrough, though, it's home turf. He is wickedly observant, funny, cynical, evocative, and he possesses a gift that cannot be taught: he can tell a story.

  John Grisham

  Home, Order, Mississippi Delta

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• I know people who say Hollywood broke her heart, and all that, but I dont believe it. She was very observant and tough minded and appealing, but she adored and trusted the wrong people. She was very courageous-you know the book Twelve Against the Gods? Marilyn was like that, she had to challenge the gods at every turn.

  George Cukor

  Book, Believe, Heart

  Gavin Lambert, George Cukor, Robert Trachtenberg (2000). “On Cukor”, Rizzoli Intl Pubns

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• I have enormous pride in the survival of the Jewish people, the cultural heritage of the Jewish people, but I'm not observant, and I don't belong to a synagogue. I don't go to temple on high holy days, but I'm proud to be Jewish.

  Erica Jong

  Pride, Holy Days, People

  Interview with Whitney Joiner, logger.believermag.com. October 17, 2013.

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• The religiously observant is lumped in with the nominal Muslim, the nominal Muslim is lumped in with the non-Muslim and the radical. If we want to make sense of this mess and stop pushing Muslims into the arms of the extremist, we need to make meaningful distinctions between the religion of Islam that a billion Muslims follow and see as a guidance as a peaceful righteous moral life and the puritanical Islam of a minority which so captures the media's attention.

  Reza Aslan

  Meaningful, Media, Religion Of Islam

  Source: www.sbs.com.au

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• A writer is always observant, of course... You can take the kernel of something - part of it - and use it in a book.

  Carol Higgins Clark

  Book, Use, Courses

  "Mystery writer Carol Higgins Clark on her successful career and teaming with her famed mom to bring their popular characters to TV". Interview with John W. Kennedy, www.beliefnet.com.

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• This is, if not a lifetime process, it's awfully close to it. The writer broadens, becomes deeper, becomes more observant, becomes more tempered, becomes much wiser over a period time passing. It is not something that is injected into him by a needle. It is not something that comes on a wave of flashing, explosive light one night and say, 'Huzzah! Eureka! I've got it!' and then proceeds to write the great American novel in eleven days. It doesn't work that way. It's a long, tedious, tough, frustrating process, but never, ever be put aside by the fact that it's hard.

  Rod Serling

  Writing, Night, Light

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• It is quite evident that a barrier must be cleared in order to escape the psychologists and enter into a realm which is not "auto-observant", where we ourselves no longer divide ourselves into observer and observed. Then the dreamer is completely dissolved in his reverie. His reverie is his silent life. It is that silent peace which the poet wants to convey to us.

  Gaston Bachelard

  Dream, Peace, Order

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• However, they have not acquired a perfect mastery of the art of lying; they lie so clumsily and ineptly that anyone who is just a little observant can easily detect it. But for us Christians they stand as a terrifying example of God's wrath.

  Martin Luther

  Christian, Religious, Art

  "On the Jews and Their Lies". Book by Martin Luther, 1543.

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• I am an observant Jew! Now my secret is out.

  Roseanne Barr

  Secret, Jew

  "Roseanne Barr Says Israel Must End Their Blockade and Occupation of Gaza". Interview with Kathleen Wells, www.huffingtonpost.com.

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• I'm good at using my face as a canvas… I'll see a photograph of a character and try to copy them on to my face. I think I'm really observant, and thinking how a person is put together, seeing them on the street and noticing subtle things about them that make them who they are.

  Cindy Sherman

  Character, Thinking, Trying

  "Cindy Sherman: Me, myself and I" by Simon Hattenstone, www.theguardian.com. January 14, 2011.

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• To a mind like mine, restless, inquisitive, and observant of everything that was passing, it is easy to suppose that religion was the subject to which it would be directed; and, although this subject principally occupied my thoughts, there was nothing that I saw or heard of to which my attention was not directed.

  Nat Turner

  Mind, Saws, Would Be

  Nat Turner (2011). “The Confessions of Nat Turner, the Leader of the Late Insurrection in Southampton, Virginia”, p.18, Univ of North Carolina Press

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• I love movin'. I was observant growing up, watching Michael Jackson and John Travolta. I'd close my eyes, see the moves.

  Jon Heder

  Growing Up, Moving, Eye

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• I am not particularly distressed by the state of fiction or the role of the writer. The more marginal, perhaps ultimately the more trenchant and observant and finally necessary he'll become.

  Don DeLillo

  Roles, Fiction, States

  Don DeLillo, Thomas DePietro (2005). “Conversations with Don DeLillo”, p.130, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Experience has shown that the more fascinating the subject, the less observant the photographer.

  Andreas Feininger

  Photography, Photographer, Subjects

  Andreas Feininger (1974). “The Perfect Photograph”

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• Neil Shepard's (T)RAVEL/ UN(T)RAVEL takes us from the sublime -- Paris in Spring, sunset on Corfu -- to an unscheduled toilet stop in a Chinese desert as fellow passengers cheer. Yes, there's light at the heart of this book; but darkness too, as the world and the traveler unravel and re-ravel, fall together, come apart. Shepard proves the best sort of traveling companion -- lively, observant, incisive, eloquent, charmed by the strange and familiar, the old and new. Climb aboard these poems. Enjoy the ride.

  Charles Harper Webb

  Cheer, Spring, Fall

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• I just want ambitious teenagers to know it is totally fine to be quite, observant kids. Besides being a delight to your parents, you will find you have plenty of time later to catch up.

  Mindy Kaling

  Teenager, Kids, Parent

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• Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth.... Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words and they backhand them across the net.

  E. B. White

  Children, Writing, Games

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• There is an audience out there for literate films - slower, more observant, more human films, and they deserve to be made.

  Alexander Payne

  Film, Made, Audience

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Nowhere but in France are people so strictly observant of great matters and so disdainfully indulgent about small ones.

  Honore de Balzac

  People, Matter, France

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• The immediate need for education and practice in using our natural resources of soil, forest, water, wildlife and areas of inspirational beauty to the best advantage of all, for this generation and others to come, is again apparent to every observant citizen.

  Walt Disney

  Practice, Water, Generations

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• Most writers' view of the New West is either phony - obsessed with the same tired mythology - or it's obsessed with anti-mythology, ... There's not a lot of realistic, observant writing about the West right now.

  Walter Kirn

  Writing, Tired, Views

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• My mother finally took me to a child psychologist, who knew exactly what I was, but she just couldn’t accept it and kept trying to tell my folks I was reading their body language and was very observant, so I had good reason to imagine I heard people’s thoughts. Of course, she couldn’t admit I was literally hearing people’s thoughts because that just didn’t fit into her world.

  Charlaine Harris

  Mother, Children, Reading

  Charlaine Harris (2009). “Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set”, p.53, Penguin

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• My family are observant Muslims, but I've come to the faith through an intellectual conviction, and that's something that they've taught me. It's never been forced upon me. They've given me a very strong identity as an Australian Muslim.

  Randa Abdel-Fattah

  Strong, Intellectual, Identity

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• Writers are socially observant. We find people endlessly fascinating, and real life is mysterious. Sometimes it's hard to stop staring at the strut and squawk of my fellow man. They can be quite inspiring. Sometimes it's hard to stop talking to them to see what in the world they're thinking.

  Julianna Baggott

  Real, Men, Thinking

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