Being On The Outside Looking In Quotes & Sayings

We will learn that computers, amazing as they are, still cannot come close to being as effective as human beings. A computer isn't creative on its own because it is programmed to behave in a predictable way. Creativity comes from looking for the unexpected and stepping outside your own experience. Computers simply cannot do that. — Masaru Ibuka

As I stood in front of the mirror in the beautiful little black dress, I knew that I was looking at a woman whom I would never see again. I wished I had never seen her in the first place, but the truth is she had always been there. I was being dishonest to myself by pretending that she hadn't. — Jane L Rosen

Super polished signage is not always a good sign. I'm always looking for places that you have to know about to find. Also, just food-wise, if I'm eating ethnic cuisine - I hate that phrase, but still - If I'm eating Mexican food, I'm looking to see that there are Mexicans in the restaurant. They know if the food is being made right. — Adam Richman

Being on the cover of 'Vogue' at 15 meant nothing to me. I never really understood what it was they were looking at, what they saw in me. — Carmen Dell'Orefice

The late '60s and the '70s, a lot of this really beautiful equipment was being made and installed into studios around the world and the Neve boards were considered like the Cadillacs of recording consoles. They're these really big, behemoth-looking recording desks; they kind of look like they're from the Enterprise in Star Trek or something like that. They're like a grayish color, sort of like an old Army tank with lots of knobs, and to any studio geek or gear enthusiast it's like the coolest toy in the world. — Dave Grohl

Outside the station of Santa Maria Novella Isabella has to stand aside while a line of prisoners are marched into the terminus by armed Fascist guards. They pass within touching distance of her, carrying bags and bundles. There are old people and some children too. They all seem swamped by their clothes, disembodied by them somehow. Then she catches the eye of Ezra, a young Jewish man who once worked in the arts material shop where she buys most of her pigments and brushes. He is almost at the back of the line. The veins are high and urgent on his hand. His trousers are held up with a dirty piece of string. His cobalt blue eyes hold hers for the barest beat of a moment but some essence of his being conveys itself to her and her blood quickens in sympathy for him. She has the feeling of looking into the eyes of a ghost. — Glenn Haybittle

It's always struck me as funny that guys with scars get a reputation for being hard. It's the ones that cut them you should be looking out for, right? — Louise Welsh

It is impossible for us to see as God sees because we look at our circumstances which are like an enveloping cloud that surrounds us, preventing us from seeing outside them. There's a vast difference between being on the ground when a thundercloud is over head and being in a jet plane above the storm. What a different viewpoint you get when you are looking down on it from when you are looking up at it. — J. Dwight Pentecost

There are a number of rules that should be observed when one meets royalty, ranging from what one can say and when, to where one should stand, when one can sit, even where one should look. Sindy bobbed a nervous curtsy and, before being introduced, blurted out an invitation to come inside whilst looking John directly in the eye. — F.D. Lee

Self-discovery changes everything, including your relationships with people. When you find your authentic self, those who loved your mask are disappointed. you may end up alone, but you don't need to stay alone. While it's painful to sever old connections, it's not a tragedy. it's an opportunity. Now, you can find people who understand the importance of looking for truth and being authentic. Now you can find people who want to connect deeply, like you've always wanted to, instead of constant small talk and head games. Now you can have real intimacy. Now, you can find your tribe. — Vironika Tugaleva

Empathy seems to have been replaced with judgement in today's world. NO ONE has arrived. I repeat, NO ONE has arrived. We all experience joy, happiness, sadness, anger, disappointment, fear, etc ... Some of the most successful people have said things in interviews that give you a peek into their vulnerable areas. The differences are found in how we manage our own issues so if you are beating yourself up, comparing yourself or on the other end of the spectrum looking down on others ... please stop! We are all searching for significance in one way or another ... some have found it within while it takes others a little more time searching the outside. Be true to yourself and allow others to do the same. Remember, no one has it all together all the time. NO ONE HAS ARRIVED ... WE ARE ALL BE-COMING. HUMANS BE-ING. So let folks BE. — Sanjo Jendayi

Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist if at the same time she manages to be a good wife, a good mother, good-looking, good-tempered, well-dressed, well-groomed, and unaggressive. — Marya Mannes

I'm a mad thinker in general. I think about everything, all the time. Especially when I write music, a lot of the influences come from personal experiences or from being on the outside looking in, being that person who witnessed things that stuck with me throughout my life. — Adam Hicks

Wounds.
Broken places.
Possibility.
Change.
Steps toward holiness.
Imperfect progress.
The hurt in those who hurt me
their underbellies.
Grace.
Love.
Me looking alot more like Jesus than I did before.
And to discover through all this seeing
being unglued isn't all that bad. — Lysa TerKeurst

I really love doing nothing. I really love just being at home and taking a couple of days, you know, doing nothing. You know what I mean? Just getting up, being around the house, going outside the back yard, coming back in; I really like to do nothing because I travel a lot. There's a lot of travelling. There's a lot of on the phone all the time. There's a lot of looking at papers and reading things and so you don't want to read magazines and you don't want to do anything; you don't want to read books, you just want to just kind of shut down a little bit. — Jennifer Lopez

I don't really know why it matters so much. Ian could be better at talking than me, or cooking, or working, or housework, or saving money, or earning money, or spending money, or understanding books or films; he could be nicer than me, better-looking, more intelligent, cleaner, more generous-spirited, more helpful, a better human being in any way you care to mention ... and I wouldn't really mind. Really. I accept and understand that you can't be good at everything, and I am tragically unskilled in some very important areas. But sex is different; knowing that a successor is better in bed is impossible to take, and I don't know why. — Nick Hornby

At first, I thought it was having the picture that made it special, but it's not even that. It's looking at something without being watched, without being told how to see. That's what the picture has given us. — Ally Condie

You're being watched too, remember?"
"I wasn't aware - "
"That some of the screens you're looking at are looking at you?"
"Yes."
"Well, they are. — Clive Barker

When I was a child, my behavior was far from being what most people would label 'intelligent.' It was often limited, repetitive and anti-social. I could not do many of the things that most people take for granted, such as looking someone in the eye or deciphering a person's body language, and only acquired these skills with much effort over time. — Daniel Tammet

Some people take months, years, maybe even decades, during which they aren't sure whether they're on the outside of Christian faith looking in, or on the inside looking around to see if it's real.
As with ordinary waking up, there are many people who are somewhere in between. But the point is that there's such a thing as being asleep, and there's such a thing as being awake. And it's important to tell the difference, and to be sure you're awake by the time you have to be up and ready for action, whatever that action may be. — N. T. Wright

By the time they arrived, the snow was coming down fast ...
"It's beautiful," she said, pausing outside the door. She thrust out her hands and let the snow land on her palms.
"Yes, yes ... " Reid seemed in a mighty big hurry to get her inside.
"How long did you say the storm would last?" she asked, thinking it would be so beautiful. The snow
not being trapped with Reid Jamison.
Reid hesitated. "Longer than either of us is going to like," he muttered, looking miserable.
Jenna was afraid of that. — Debbie Macomber

This is the place of nightmares in so many ways, but there's nightmares on the outside, too, and one day, when you're not even looking for it, you'll find something perfect in here, and you'll feel whole. Hold onto that. — Ashley Newell

Lydia is enduring the same fate, I may remind you." Vincent remarked. "And she is doubtless freezing, being forced to stand there in only her chemise." A rakish smile spread across his features. "Perhaps we could go down and have a peek."
Rafe scowled. "I don't want you looking at my woman."
Vincent folded his arms and glared. "Well, I don't want you looking at my woman! — Brooklyn Ann

She would not say of any one in the world that they were this or were that. She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, far out to the sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day. Not that she thought herself clever, or much out of the ordinary. How she had got through life on the few twigs of knowledge Fraulein Daniels gave them she could not think. She knew nothing; no language, no history; she scarcely read a book now, except memoirs in bed; and yet to her it was absolutely absorbing; all this; the cabs passing; and she would not say of Peter, she would not say of herself, I am this, I am that. — Virginia Woolf

Occasionally they would hear a harsh croak or a splash as some amphibian was disturbed, but the only creature they saw was a toad as big as Will's foot, which could only flop in a pain-filled sideways heave as if it were horribly injured. It lay across the path, trying to move out of the way and looking at them as if it knew they meant to hurt it.
'It would be merciful to kill it,' said Tialys.
'How do you know?' said Lyra. 'It might still like being alive, in spite of everything.'
'If we killed it, we'd be taking it with us,' said Will. 'It wants to stay here. I've killed enough living things. Even a filthy stagnant pool might be better than being dead.'
'But if it's in pain?' said Tialys.
'If it could tell us, we'd know. But since it can't, I'm not going to kill it. That would be considering our feelings rather than the toad's.'
They moved on. — Philip Pullman

Lower your gaze because you become less of a human every time you stare at a woman and you stare at her like she's a piece of meat, like she's an animal. That just means you've lost respect for a fellow human being. You're looking at her like an ape looks at a female ape, like a dog looks at a female dog.That's all, you've turned into an animal. Regain your humanity. Lower your gaze. — Nouman Ali Khan

My whole adult life I've worked toward one goal - the success of our business. But I might as well have been chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. What I was looking for, striving for, wasn't really there. Meaning I've been measuring the value of my life all wrong. Then I met you and realized that being a somebody isn't nearly as wonderful as having a somebody. And being somebody to somebody else. — Ally Blake

Lacking strength beauty hates the understanding for asking of her what it cannot do but the life of spirit is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it. It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself. It is this power, not as something positive, which closes its eyes to the negative as when we say of something that it is nothing or is false, and then having done with it, turn away and pass on to something else; on the contrary, spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and tarrying with it. This tarrying with the negative is the magical power that converts it into being. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

And sometimes if I want
To imagine I'm a lamb
(Or a whole flock
Spreading out all over the hillside
So I can be a lot of happy things at the same time),
It's only because I feel what I write at sunset,
Or when a cloud passes its hand over the light
And silence runs over the grass outside.
When I sit and write poems
Or, walking along the roads or pathways,
I write poems on the paper in my thoughts,
I feel a staff in my hand
And see my silhouette
On top of a knoll,
Looking after my flock and seeing my ideas,
Or looking after my ideas and seeing my flock,
With a silly smile like someone who doesn't understand what somebody's saying
But tries to pretend they do. — Alberto Caeiro

I didn't tell her about the free-for-alls on the school yard, muggings on the bus. A girl burned a cigarette hole in the back of another girl's shirt at nutrition right in front of me looking at me as if daring me to stop her. I saw a boy being threatened with a knife on the hallway outside my spanish class. Girls talked about their abortions in gym class. Claire didn't need to know about that. I wanted the world to be beautiful for her. I wanted things to work out. I always had a great day no matter what. — Janet Fitch

Learn that happiness comes through self-control and not being angry or jealous. The only one that you really torment is yourself. It is easier to let go and gain new ways of looking at life. — Frederick Lenz

I recently heard a talk about identity in which the speaker said it's almost as though we are born into a world in which we are constantly being labeled by others
our parents, our friends, our family, and people we don't even know. Each person, from the outside looking in, comes up with a label to slap onto us without our permission. Some labels are kind and some are truthful, but many of them are lies. And sometimes we leave the negative labels on so long that we believe what they say; we allow those labels to define us. — Debra Fileta

My favorite thing about acting is being alone and going through the scripts and working on it and getting ideas and asking myself questions, looking outside myself for them and researching and getting to the bottom of something and being creative with it as an actor and how to express it in a creative fashion. That's my favorite part. And, the actual acting of it. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I shook my head, smiling in spite of myself, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Adrian. My husband. If anyone had told me a year ago that I'd be married, I would've said they were joking. If they'd told me I'd be married to a vampire, I would've said they were delusional. Looking at Adrian now, I felt a surge of love well up within me, despite our earlier tension. I could no longer imagine a life without him in it. It was impossible. Could I imagine a life with him that didn't involve us being trapped in a suite of rooms with his mother while both our people reviled us and made plans against us? Definitely. There were any number of futures I'd love to have for us, but his was our current path until something spectacular happened. Outside, the Court's gates, my people wanted to imprison me. Inside them, his people wanted to assault him. At least in this suite, we were safe. Most importantly, we were together. — Richelle Mead

To be severed and alienated within oneself also creates a sense of unreality. One may have an all-pervasive sense of never quite belonging, of being on the outside looking in. The condition of inner alienation and isolation is also pervaded by a low-grade chronic depression. This has to do with the sadness of losing one's authentic self. Perhaps the deepest and most devastating aspect of neurotic shame is the rejection of the self by the self. — John Bradshaw

I have a lot of fans who are people of color. I think, if nothing else, I kind of understand that sense of being on the outside looking in, culturally. — Wes Craven

I was always the new kid, and I got to know the language and the politics of being on the outside, looking in. Never being in the clique - always being a student of the clique, a subversive, and I could look around and identify the other guys who were excluded. — Padgett Powell

From the outside looking in, everything looked completely ordinary. The problem was being on the inside, looking out. — Belle Malory

I'm so tired of being alone," Heller whispered, voice broken. "So very tired of being on the outside looking in. Please ... "
I tightened my arms around him. Could Heller be asking for what I thought?
"What, Heller? Please what? What do you want?"
"You," Heller murmured. "I want you. Please tell me you don't hate me for what I did. Or how I acted in the beginning. Please give me a chance ... please don't leave me."
Squeezing my eyes closed, I fought not to let the tears escape, my heart threatening to break at the anguish I heard in Heller's voice. — M.A. Church

Look at your life. Look at the ways in which you define who you are and what you're capable of achieving. Look at your goals. Look at the pressures applied by the people around you and the culture in which you were raised. Look again. And again. Keep looking until you realize, within your own experience, that you're so much more than who you believe you are. Keep looking until you discover the wondrous heart, the marvelous mind, that is the very basis of your being. — Tsoknyi Rinpoche

Someone with a low degree of epistemic arrogance is not too visible, like a shy person at a cocktail party. We are not predisposed to respect humble people, those who try to suspend judgement. Now contemplate epistemic humility. Think of someone heavily introspective, tortured by the awareness of his own ignorance. He lacks the courage of the idiot, yet has the rare guts to say "I don't know." He does not mind looking like a fool or, worse, an ignoramus. He hesitates, he will not commit, and he agonizes over the consequences of being wrong. He introspects, introspects, and introspects until he reaches physical and nervous exhaustion.
This does not necessarily mean he lacks confidence, only that he holds his own knowledge to be suspect. I will call such a person an epistemocrat; the province where the laws are structured with this kind of human fallibility in mind I will can an epistemocracy. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

When I lived in New York, there wasn't as much TV or film around. I got asked to do a couple of indie films, just based on me being from The Smashing Pumpkins and A Perfect Circle. I did a couple of indie movies from Japan and one from Canada, and I thought it was an exciting, fun thing to do. I had a great time doing it, it was just that, in New York, there really wasn't as much. My studio in New York closed, so I moved out to L.A. and just started looking into composing as another thing to do, as a musician. I like it a lot. It's fun and it's a different way of thinking about music. — James Iha

... I have fallen in love with a painting. Though that phrase doesn't seem to suffice, not really - rather's it that I have been drawn into the orbit of a painting, have allowed myself to be pulled into its sphere by casual attraction deepening to something more compelling. I have felt the energy and life of the painting's will; I have been held there, instructed. And the overall effect, the result of looking and looking into it's brimming surface as long as I could look, is love, by which I mean a sense of tenderness toward experience, of being held within an intimacy with the things of the world. — Mark Doty

I think you just complimented me," said Jane. "You should take better care next time."
The music had started, the couples had begun a promenade, but Mr. Nobley paused to hold Jane's arm and whisper, "Jane Erstwhile, if I never had to speak with another human being but you, I would die a happy man. I would that these people, the music, the food and foolishness all disappeared and left us alone. I would never tire of looking at you or listening to you." He took a breath. "There. That compliment was on purpose. I swear I will never idly compliment you again."
Jane's mouth was dry. All she could think to say was, "But ... but surely you wouldn't banish all the food."
He considered, then nodded once. "Right. We will keep the food. We will have a picnic."
And he spun her into the middle of the dance. — Shannon Hale

I used to go around looking as frumpy as possible because it was inconceivable you could be attractive as well as be smart. It wasn't until I started being myself, the way I like to turn out to meet people that I started to get any work. — Catherine Zeta-Jones

In Hollywood if you're good looking, tall, have okay teeth and nice skin, the odds of being successful are great. If you're short and fat, it's a different story. But as long as you look like a leading man type, half your job is done already. — John Corbett

Sometimes, when you're feeling you're lowest, the real you is summoned~And you understand, maybe for the first time ever, how grand you are, because you discover that vulnerable doesn't mean powerless, scared doesn't mean lacking in beauty, and uncertainty doesn't mean that you're lost~These realizations alone will set you on a journey that you will take you far beyond what you used to think of as extraordinary.~There is always a bright side, The Universe — Mike Dooley

Very often we see coaches who have not been successful being recycled, instead of looking to a new face or a new name who has demonstrated the ability to handle the job. — Lynn Swann

He considered the hard times in his life. All the things he had been afraid of. All those years wasted, he told himself, because I was terrified of being different. That's why all us fifty-four-year-olds end up looking so much alike. All of us are terrified of being different. — Stuart McLean

We do take pleasure in one thing that you probably won't be able to guess. Namely, making friends with nature ... nature is always there at hand to wrap us up, gently: glowing, swaying, bubbling, rustling.
Just by looking at nature, I feel as if I'm being swallowed up into it, and in that moment I get the sensation that my body's now a speck, a speck from long before I was born, a speck that is melting into nature herself. This sensation is so amazing that I forget that I'm a human being, and one with special needs to boot.
Nature calms me down when I'm furious, and laughs with me when I'm happy. You might think that it's not possible that nature could be a friend, not really. But human beings are part of the animal kingdom too, and perhaps us people with autism still have some left-over awareness of this, buried somewhere deep down. I'll always cherish that part of me that thinks of nature as a friend. — Naoki Higashida

One evening he was in his room, his brow pressing hard against the pane, looking, without seeing them, at the chestnut trees in the park, which had lost much of their russet-coloured foliage. A heavy mist obscured the distance, and the night was falling grey rather than black, stepping cautiously with its velvet feet upon the tops of the trees. A great swan plunged and replunged amorously its neck and shoulders into the smoking water of the river, and its whiteness made it show in the darkness like a great star of snow. It was the single living being that somewhat enlivened the lonely landscape. — Theophile Gautier

Being divorced is like being hit by a Mack truck. If you live through it, you start looking very carefully to the right and to the left. — Jean Kerr

The secret to being successful is to find a way to bring yourself through, even in your stories. People are looking for the essence of your truth. When you can bring your own truth to it, that's when it works. — Oprah Winfrey

Then he would ask for songs and I would pluck them out for him on a lute I borrowed from my father's wagon. He would even sing from time to time. He had a bright, reckless tenor that was always wandering off, looking for notes in the wrong places. More often than not he stopped and laughed at himself when it happened. He was a good man, and there was no conceit in him. Not long after he joined our troupe, I asked Abenthy what it was like being an arcanist. He gave me a thoughtful look. Have you ever known an arcanist? — Patrick Rothfuss

You must really begin to harden yourself to the idea of being worth looking at. — Jane Austen

Here are some passing thoughts. Imagine looking up at the moon and seeing it burning.
Imagine seeing the grocery store's checkout girl grow horns.
Imagine growing younger instead of older.
Imagine feeling more powerful and more capable of falling in love with life every new day instead of being scared and sick and not knowing whether to stay under a sheet or venture forth into the cold. — Douglas Coupland

He looked at people as if they were things. A nervous young man across from him ... came to hate him for that look. The young man lit a cigarette from his, tried talking to him, and even jostled him, to let him feel that he was not a thing but a human being, but Vronsky went on looking at him as at a lampost, and the young man grimaced, feeling that he was losing his self-possession under the pressure of this non-recognition of himself as a human being ... — Leo Tolstoy

Tate did anything he wanted to and expected me to put up with it or give into it. This was annoying. I was all for Tate being a macho man, badass, bounty-hunting biker because all that was immensely attractive but I'd spent more than ten years being in the control of a man. I wasn't looking for that kind of thing again no matter what form it came in. That said, as Caroline noted, Brad thought he was all that and wasn't but Tate was. No man liked a bitchy, nagging, argumentative shrew and, I would guess, definitely not a man like Tate. If I didn't cool that too maybe I'd turn him off and lose him. — Kristen Ashley

The truth is that there is a world of difference between looking beautiful and being beautiful. — Kevin J. Vanhoozer

As an Auyana man living in New Guinea under the Pax Australiana put it, "Life was better since the government came" because "a man could now eat without looking over his shoulder and could leave his house in the morning to urinate without fear of being shot. — Steven Pinker

What are you doing? he gasped. He looked slightly ridiculous. It was not as if he was a defenseless damsel in distress. He could have stopped me, if he wanted to. But he didn't want to. Besides, I've always considered this to be the most idiotic question in the world. I'm pulling off your pants to have a good look at your dick and your ass, is the obvious answer. Looking being only the first step, by the way. — Boris Brannigan

After spending the last 15 years guest hosting, I couldn't be happier to get the opportunity to host my own show! I'm looking forward to talking sports, connecting with listeners, and interviewing amazing guests every day, while being a part of the FOX Sports Radio family. It was worth the wait. — Jay Mohr

What could be more absurd? Yet it is nature's folly, not ours. When she set about her chief masterpiece, the making of man, she should have thought of one thing only. Instead, turning her head, looking over her shoulder, into each one of us she let creep instincts and desires which are utterly at variance with his main being, so that we are streaked, variegated, all of a mixture; the colours have run. Is the true self this which stands on the pavement in January, or that which bends over the balcony in June? Am I here, or am I there? Or is the true self neither this nor that, neither here nor there, but something so varied and wandering that it is only when we give the rein to its wishes and let it take its way unimpeded that we are indeed ourselves? — Virginia Woolf

I'm looking at the others, and I'm being fair. It makes me nervous to feel some of the things I do. But I want you to know, I'm still looking at you, too. I think you know by now I can't help it. He shrugged, seeming so boyish at that moment. — Kiera Cass

Part of the challenge of being a girl living in the 21st Century, looking back, the danger is to not judge your character by your own standards. — Zoe Kazan

The next morning, Louie was taken to an airfield to be flown to Okinawa, where many POWs were being collected before being sent home. Seeing a table stacked with K rations, he began cramming the boxes under his shirt, brushing off an attendant who tried to assure him that he didn't have to hoard them, as no one was going to starve him anymore. Looking extremely pregnant, Louie boarded the plane. — Laura Hillenbrand

An assortment of soldiers and servants hurried about, finishing their duties for the day, or beginning their duties for the night, or possibly just looking busy to avoid being given additional duties. — Jonathan Renshaw

Looking a dead insect in the sack of basmati that had come all the way from Dehra Dun, he almost wept with sorrow and marvel at its journey, which was tenderness for his own journey. In India almost nobody would be able to afford this rice, and you had to travel around the world to be able to eat such things where they were cheap enough that you could gobble them down without being rich; and when you got home to the place where they grew, you couldn't afford them anymore. — Kiran Desai

She knew her duty inside and out. The prosperity of the cash drawer brought happiness to husband and wife. Not that Madame Puta was bad looking, not at all, she could even, like so many others, have been rather pretty, but she was so careful, so distrustful that she stopped short of beauty just as she stopped short of life - her hair was a little too well dressed, her smile a little too facile and sudden, and her gestures a bit too abrupt or too furtive. You racked your brains trying to figure out what was too calculated about her and why you always felt uneasy when she came near you. This instinctive revulsion that shopkeepers inspire in anyone who goes near them who knows what's what, is one of the few consolations for being as down at heel as people who don't sell anything to anybody tend to be. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Start by looking for what is valid in every human being. — Albert Camus