Eavesdrop Quotes & Sayings

I knew that if I could put a table in a room with not much light and a couple of chairs, I could have a real conversation. And I know that people ... like to eavesdrop on a conversation. — Charlie Rose

And I didn't mean to eavesdrop. I was in the right place-okay," I amended when he raised his eyebrows. "The wrong place at the right time." More head shaking. — Myra McEntire

If you could eavesdrop on everything said about you, you'd spend most of your time waiting for the subject to come up. — Robert Breault

Hey," Shayne said through the door. "You going to stay in there all night, because we're getting tired of trying to eavesdrop from out here. Can't hear a damn thing. — Jill Shalvis

One of the positives to being visibly damaged is that people can sometimes forget you're there, even when they're interfacing with you. You almost get to eavesdrop. It's almost like they're like: If nobody's really in there, there's nothing to be shy about. That's why bullshit often tends to drop away around damaged listeners, deep beliefs revealed, diary-type private reveries indulged out loud; and, listening, the beaming and brady-kinetic boy gets to forge an interpersonal connection he knows only he can truly feel, here. — David Foster Wallace

It is the way to educate your eye and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. — Walker Evans

He met her eyes in the mirror. "I thought you weren't talking to me ever again."
"I'm not," she said ... "I'm talking to myself while you eavesdrop. — Suzanne Brockmann

The president and the vice president wanted the FBI to execute searches in secret, avoiding the strictures of the legal and constitutional standards set by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The answer was Stellar Wind. The NSA would eavesdrop freely against Americans and aliens in the United States without probable cause or search warrants. It would mine and assay the electronic records of millions of telephone conversations - both callers and receivers - and the subject lines of e-mails, including names and Internet addresses. Then it would send the refined intelligence to the Bureau for action. Stellar — Tim Weiner

He went back to snapping pictures, this time getting close-ups of each SWAT member. "The ones who're only interested in muscular men who kick in doors and shoot things." Her lips twitched. "Versus men who do what? Take pictures and eavesdrop on police scanners?" "And program their own phone apps," he told her. "Trust me. That skill is in high demand these days. — Paige Tyler

I got to eavesdrop at a window. As Clay said, I did have another option. I could wait in the car and let them fill me in later. So, eavesdropping it was. — Kelley Armstrong

In my notboredom but lack of available activity, I eavesdrop from their closet, hunching down among the Capezios and crinolines piled on the floor. — Frances Mayes

Alyosha," she murmured again, "look out the door, see if mama is eavesdropping." "Very well, Lise, I will look, only wouldn't it be better not to look? Why suspect your mother of such meanness?" "Meanness? What meanness? That she's eavesdropping on her daughter is her right, it's not meanness," Lise flared up. "And you may rest assured, Alexei Fyodorovich, that when I myself am a mother and have a daughter like me, I shall certainly eavesdrop on her." "Really, Lise? That's not good." "Oh, my God, what's mean about it? If it were an ordinary social conversation and I eavesdropped, — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I think I'm very curious about other people. I like to sit and eavesdrop, you know. — Rachel Weisz

Stilletos of a frozen stillicide [ ... ] In the lovely line heading this comment the reader should note the last word. My dictionary defines it as 'a succession of drops falling from the eaves, eavesdrop, cavesdrop.' I remember having encountered it for the first time in a poem by Thomas Hardy. The bright frost has eternalized the bright eavesdrop. — Vladimir Nabokov

Everybody should eavesdrop once in a while. There's nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head. — Thornton Wilder

I listen to the things people want out of love these days and they blow my mind. I go to the pub with the boys from the squad and listen while they explain, with minute precision, exactly what shape a woman should be, what bits she should shave how, what acts she should perform on which date and what she should always or never do or say or want; I eavesdrop on women in cafes while they reel off lists of which jobs a man is allowed, which cars, which labels, which flowers and restaurants and gemstones get the stamp of approval, and I want to shout, Are you people out of your tiny minds? — Tana French

Eavesdrop and write it down from memory - gives you a stronger sense of how people talk and what their concerns are. I love to eavesdrop! — Jane Smiley

He'd know about the role of mirror neurons in the brain, special cells in the premotor cortex that fire right before a person reaches for a rock, steps forward, turns away, begins to smile.Amazingly, the same neurons fire whether we do something or watch someone else do the same thing, and both summon similar feelings. Learning form our own mishaps isn't as safe as learning from someone else's, which helps us decipher the world of intentions, making our social whirl possible. The brain evolved clever ways to spy or eavesdrop on risk, to fathom another's joy or pain quickly, as detailed sensations, without resorting to words. We feel what we see, we experience others as self. — Diane Ackerman

Excerpt from the Marquis's Mistake by myself.
"So what am I my Lord, an antidote, a bluestocking or on the shelf? I assume it is the last because I should have come out three years ago and am all of twenty and one."
"But you were not out so that doesn't count and I find you extremely desirable so you are far from an antidote. I think you very pretty and my taste has always been considered excellent. You are well educated but have other interests and ride well, so you fail to fit the criteria of a bluestocking. It might interest you to know my grandmother put you top of the girls she invited to her dinner party. Her opinion only confirmed what I had already concluded from examining your notebook and sketches. You eavesdrop and I sneak a peek at other people's private notebooks. You see I think we would be well-matched. — Giselle Marks

Composers, skilled in theory, hear music differently. CAT profiles of their listening brains show more verbal hemisphere activity, as if they don't just let the associative sensations of timber and rhythm swell through them, but somehow eavesdrop on a point being argued on thought's original instruments. Can the effect be any less beautiful for being better articulated? — Richard Powers

Ye comin'?" Ben shook his head. "Nope. I'm just the driver. Ms. Adams owns the shop. She makes all the buyin' decisions." McPhearson nodded. "Seems my woman's determined to make a few buyin' decisions of her own." He shrugged. "I'll have to keep an eye on her. If Hazel has her way, she'll probably trade away me favorite chair. Finally got the thing fittin' me backside just the way I like it." "Colin McPhearson," his wife scolded from the porch, where she and Tori had paused to eavesdrop on the men's conversation. "No one in their right mind would take that lumpy, broken-down thing. There's a better chance of me breaking that old chair up for kindling than there is of a sensible woman like Mrs. Adams taking it in trade." "Don't be criticizing me chair, woman," McPhearson blustered, raising his voice but putting no real heat behind the words as he stomped the rest of the way across the yard. Ben — Karen Witemeyer

A journalist is basically a chronicler, not an interpreter of events. Where else in society do you have the license to eavesdrop on so many different conversations as you have in journalism? Where else can you delve into the life of our times? — Bill Moyers

Technology is not a panacea. I refuse to work on technology to track users, analyze usage patterns, watermark information, censor, detect drug use, or eavesdrop. I am not naive enough to think any of those technologies could enable a 'compromise'. — Bram Cohen

So we couldn't mingle with them, but we could eavesdrop. We got our knowledge that way
we caught it like germs. — Margaret Atwood

I don't want to suggest that I was listening to or even overhearing the conversation the two of you were having. I am not the sort of man to eavesdrop. I would say, however, your words did seem almost to float on the air from your table across to my own, which in any case is a short distance, and, having arrived, they were, I would say, impossible not to hear, just as one would have no choice whether to hear a car backfire, or a bird sing. Very difficult not to hear, if one can hear, if one has ears; it's involuntary, you see. We hear things whether we want to or not, and in this way the words you were speaking to one another entered my ears — Daniel Wallace

The president overstepped his authority when he asked the NSA to eavesdrop on Americans' international phone calls without obtaining a warrant. — Sherrod Brown

One did not need to penetrate David's secret counsels or insinuate a man in his bodyguard. All one needed was a pair of years and access to the royal precincts. Just to eavesdrop upon his singing was to develop an accurate idea of his state of mind. — Geraldine Brooks

I go to bars and restaurants, and I sit and I eavesdrop on people and I watch people in shopping centers and, you know, I read the newspapers and I talk to the Trenton cops, and I just get a lot of information that comes in that somehow turns into a book. — Janet Evanovich

Any place is good for eavesdropping, if you know how to eavesdrop. — Tom Waits

President Bush has asserted the right to wiretap and eavesdrop on any American without a warrant in the name of fighting terrorism. He has asserted presidential power beyond stated constitutional rights, and there is no Republican gutsy enough to call his hand. — Helen Thomas

Nobody should have the right to eavesdrop, or you become a totalitarian state - the kind of state I escaped as a kid to come to this country where you have democracy and freedom of speech. — Jan Koum

Language was both his livelihood and his addiction and he was often preyed upon by a near irresistible compulsion to eavesdrop on conversations in public places. — Amitav Ghosh

Paarfi undertakes a detailed examination on the virtues of brevity:
It would seem, therefore, that if we allow our readers, by virtue of being in the company of the historian, to eavesdrop on this interchange, we will have, in one scene, discharged two obligations; a sacrifice, if we may say so, to the god Brevity, whom all historians, indeed, all who work with the written word, ought to worship. We cannot say too little on this subject. — Steven Brust

I wish I had taken Spanish instead of French in high school. I could eavesdrop on a lot more conversations on the subway if I knew Spanish. — Meg Cabot

You stuck listening devices all over the dacha
even in the bathroom. You spend the people's money to eavesdrop on my farts. — Nikita Khrushchev

Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long. — Walker Evans

Eavesdrop on any coffee shop conversation and you'll realize in a heartbeat you'd never put that slush onscreen. Real conversation is full of awkward pauses, poor word choices and phrasing, non sequiturs, pointless repetitions; it seldom makes a point or achieves closure. But that's okay because conversation isn't about making points or achieving closure. It's what psychologists call "keeping the channel open." Talk is how we develop and change relationships. — Robert McKee

I do love to eavesdrop. It's inspirational, not only for subject matter but for actual dialogue, the way people talk. — Lynda Barry

If I didn't try to eavesdrop on every bus ride I take or look for the humor when I go for a walk, I would just be depressed all the time. — Lynda Barry

I'm going to my room," Jessie Kay called. "Y'all do me a favor and argue loud enough so I can listen in without having to strain myself. — Gena Showalter

What do they do to students at the University who eavesdrop?" Bast asked curiously.
"I haven't the slightest idea. I was never caught. I think making you sit and listen to the rest of my story should be punishment enough. — Patrick Rothfuss

Let's let the stars watch
Let them stare
Let the wind eavesdrop
I don't care
For all that we've got, don't let go
Just hold me — The Civil Wars

Remember that there was great controversy that George Bush asserted the power simply to detain American citizens without due process or simply to eavesdrop on their conversation without warrant. Here you have something much more severe. Not eavesdropping on American citizens, not detaining them without due process, but killing them without due process. And yet many Democrats and progressives, because it's President Obama doing it, have no problem with it and are even in favor of it." Greenwald added: "To say that the President has the right to kill citizens without due process is really to take the Constitution and to tear it into as many little pieces as you can and then burn it and step on it." For — Jeremy Scahill

People inspire me. Everyone is such an individual and has unique stories. I'm a voyeur. I eavesdrop. Sometimes I ask questions. And sometimes people just want to tell me their stories. — Ellen Hopkins

I run everywhere and eavesdrop. It's the best way to see a city. — Elayne Boosler

Kids who don't eavesdrop on adult conversations are doomed to a childhood of ignorance. — Kelley Armstrong

There is a weird kind of anonymity a roller coaster provides: It's populated, but everyone's too preoccupied with whirling around the roof of a casino to eavesdrop. It runs a fixed amount of time, has minimal surveillance for lack of a way to descramble the audio, and it's conveniently out of earshot for certain writer- types who might scribble down the plan. — Daniel Younger

Finch picked up one of the ancient fax-mags and brought it over to me.
"I don't need anything to read," I said. "I'll just sit here and eavesdrop along with you."
"I thought you might sit on the mag," he said. "It's extremely difficult to get soot out of chintz. — Connie Willis

Enterprising law-enforcement officers with a warrant can flick a distant switch and turn a standard mobile phone into a roving mic or eavesdrop on occupants of cars equipped with travel assistance systems. — Jonathan Zittrain

Children's Song
We live in our own world,
A world that is too small
For you to stoop and enter
Even on hands and knees,
The adult subterfuge.
And though you probe and pry
With analytic eye,
And eavesdrop all our talk
With an amused look,
You cannot find the centre
Where we dance, where we play,
Where life is still asleep
Under the closed flower,
Under the smooth shell
Of eggs in the cupped nest
That mock the faded blue
Of your remoter heaven. — R.S. Thomas

Polly had been washing up when she'd heard the men talking late one night, and it's a poor woman who can't eavesdrop while making a noise at the same time. — Terry Pratchett

The ability to eavesdrop on people's communications vests immense power in those who do it. And unless such power is held in check by rigorous oversight and accountability, it is almost certain to be abused. Expecting the US government to operate a massive surveillance machine in complete secrecy without falling prey to its temptations runs counter to every historical example and all available evidence about human nature. — Glenn Greenwald

A pair of werewolves occupied another booth. They were eating raw shanks of lamb and arguing about who would win in a fight: Dumbledore from Harry Potter books or Magnus Bane.
"Dumbledore would totally win," said the first one. "He has the badass Killing Curse."
The second lycanthrope made a trenchant point. "But Dumbledore isn't real."
"I don't think Magnus Bane is real either," scoffed the first. "Have you ever met him?"
"This is so weird," said Clary, slinking down in her seat. "Are you listening to them?"
"No. It's rude to eavesdrop," said Jace. — Cassandra Clare

Pandora decided to take another tack. "You do not want to marry me, my lord. I would be the worst wife imaginable. I'm forgetful and stubborn, and I can never sit still for more than five minutes. I'm always doing things I shouldn't. I eavesdrop on other people, I shout and run in public, and I'm a clumsy dancer. And I've lowered my character with a great deal of unwholesome reading material." Pausing to draw breath, she noticed that Lord St. Vincent didn't appear properly impressed by her list of faults. "Also, my legs are skinny. Like a stork's. — Lisa Kleypas

It is something I recognise in myself. I do eavesdrop. I do people-watch, a lot. — Jon McGregor

But if you use shortwave, then you can bounce the information off the ionosphere. This works a good deal better when the sun is not in the sky, sluicing the atmosphere with wideband noise. So radio telegraphers, and the people who eavesdrop on them (what the Brits call the Y Service) are, alike, nocturnal beings. — Neal Stephenson

And quickly my mom put her arm around my shoulders and spun me back toward the car, walking quickly, and I was like, "Mom, what's wrong?" And she said, "We can't eavesdrop, Hazel. — John Green

You saved Dad's life. If anyone's got the right to eavesdrop on him, it's you. — J.K. Rowling

The scents of nature are largely a chemical conversation between plants and animals and humans merely eavesdrop. — Avery Gilbert

Sometimes I eavesdrop on people. I could rationalize it - oh, this is good anthropological research for characters I'm writing - but it's basically just nosiness. It also helps me gauge where I'm at: Am I normal? — Mindy Kaling