Fly On The Wall Quotes & Sayings

I'd much rather have sat there and just been a fly on the wall, instead of having to smile at people. I'd rather have been a waitress. Just gone round and stared at people. — Jennifer Saunders

I call these lessons 'learned on the fly' because the knowledge gained from the experiences connected with them were very much akin to the spirit of the centerfielder in baseball running backward at full speed, looking towards the heavens, trying to not lose sight of the ball or fail to notice the sensation of gravel from the warning track under his cleats as he knowingly approaches the blindside impact of an outfield wall. His focused intention guides him into trying to make the catch that will save the game for his team, his city and the harmony of the moment, despite the foreboding threat of a pending collision. Decisions in these situations are made in an instant. One weighs the purpose of the game, the success of the catch and one's own safety of survival in a fleeting moment, and in all hopes one lives to tell about it in the glow of great success. — Michael Delaware

I notice that Andy is watching our exchange with the still, silent fascination of a fly on the wall that is canny enough to be aware of the existence of swatters. — Charles Stross

The Palestinian state is within our grasp. Soon the Palestinian flag will fly on the walls, the minarets and the cathedrals of Jerusalem. — Yasser Arafat

Say that the berries on a tree fermented / say that some birds ate them got drunk demented / couldn't fly straight flew straight into instead / wall of an office block and fell down dead / down on the pavement people undeterred / stepping over the mound of broken bird — Ali Smith

I would trade all the advantages of humanity to be a fly on the wall when Franklin and Jefferson discussed liberty, Lenin and Trotsky revolution, Newton and Halley the shape of the universe, or when Darwin entertained Huxley and Lyell at Down. — Stephen Jay Gould

Being able to disappear and appear and go through walls and fly with the speed of thought isn't going to make you half as happy as to see those you witnessed to, Hi there! Wow, didn't I meet you on the streets? Didn't I talk to you about Jesus? Wow! Here you are! Hallelujah! That's going to be the biggest thrill of all! — David Berg

I do disguises for different reasons. I like to study people - be like the fly on the wall. Even if it's two old ladies sitting on a bench or some kids on a swing. Because I don't know what it's like to fit in an everyday life situation. — Michael Jackson

After asking Humphrey to name his native city, Khrushchev bounced to his feet and drew a bold blue circle around Minneapolis on a map of the United States hanging on his wall - "so that I don't forget to order them to spare the city when the rockets fly. — Frederick Kempe

Think about Tucker. Think about a good memory, she whispers in my mind. Remember a moment when you loved him. And just like that, I do.
"What did the fish say when it hit a concrete wall?" he asked me. We're sitting on the bank of a stream and he's tying a fly onto my fishing rod, wearing a cowboy hat and red lumberjack-style flannel shirt over a gray tee. So adorable.
"What?" I say, he grins. Unbelievable of how gorgeous he is. And that he's mine. He loves me and I love him.
"Dam!" he says. — Cynthia Hand

When I was in Colditz, that impenetrable fortress, whittling away my life, I wanted to know this."
"Looks like you're still there, Shura."
"No," he said. "I'm in New York, a fly on the wall, trying to see you without me. — Paullina Simons

Her attention was on the first knight, pulling back his bowstring, taking aim. She paused, sensed the wind and revised her aim, then let the arrow fly.
I watched, as if in slow motion, as it shot across the space and split through the first knight's throat.
But Lia was not done. She was already on one knee, squinting and taking aim at the second as he turned, spotting us. She let the next arrow fly, and the arrow struck him in the chest, driving him backward over the parapet wall.
"Saints in heaven, I believe I'm in love," Luca growled, running past me, sword drawn. — Lisa Tawn Bergren

What gives us word-users the right to make life-and-death decisions concerning other living creatures that have no words? Why do we find ourselves in positions of such anguish (at least for some of us)? In the final analysis, it is simply because might makes right, and we humans, thanks to the intelligence afforded us by the complexity of our brains and our embeddedness in rich languages and cultures, are indeed high and mighty, relative to the "lower" animals (and vegetables). By virtue of our might, we are forced to establish some sort of ranking of creatures, whether we do so as a result of long and careful personal reflections or simply go along with the compelling flow of the masses. Are cows just as comfortably killable as mosquitoes? Would you feel any less troubled by swatting a fly preening on a wall than by beheading a chicken quivering on a block? — Douglas R. Hofstadter

I like being a musician that's also a fly on the wall. I like people coming in the room and doing what they do and then leaving. I like attention, but it actually gives me a little less to work with as a performer if people are editing themselves and not being them. — Travis Morrison

There are a lot of movies I would want to be a fly on the wall for. I would have loved to see the making of Jaws [1975], with all the fears and anxieties it was going to be a complete failure, and then to have it turn into the first blockbuster. — Cary Fukunaga

He (Bill Terry) once hit a ball between my legs so hard that my center-fielder caught it on the fly backing up against the wall. — Dizzy Dean

I've been truly blessed. I've been a fly on the wall of history. I've been just so many lucky places just by chance and serendipity, and obviously a huge portion of that serendipity had to do with my relationship with the real president, Ronald Reagan. — Arthur Laffer

No, I was an unknown when I walked in that room. He didn't know who I was from a fly on the wall. — Shia Labeouf

So let's say my bad luck did crash the plane. What exactly are were you going to do about it?' 'Why is the plane crashing?' He was trying to hide a smile now. 'The piolets are passed out and drunk.' 'Easy. I'd fly the plane.' Of course. I pursed my lips and tried again. 'Both engines have exploded and we're falling in a death spiral towards the earth.' 'I'd wait till we were close enough to the ground, get a good grip on you, kick out the wall, and jump. Then, I'd run you back to the scene of the accident, and we'd stumble around like the two luckiest surviours in history.' I stared at him wordlessly. 'What?' He wispered. - Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, Eclipse — Stephenie Meyer

Silly bug, fly on the wall, our first fight and how quickly we are over it. Of course I don't hate you, dearest, beloved, most cherished, I owe you everything. — A.M. Homes

In terms of so-called fly-on-the-wall documentaries, there's a claim that the camera is a transparent window into a pre-existing reality. What really is happening is that the film crew and the subjects are collaborating to simulate a reality in which they pretend the camera is not present. — Joshua Oppenheimer

The NYPD knew Sar Gedeon as a human drug lord. If they'd come in here now, they would have found him dead, sporting Spock ears, a cauterized hole in his torso, no heart, and a hoofprint branded into his chest. I'd like to be a fly on the wall for that investigation. — Lisa Shearin

I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when she walked in on you two."
"Thanks for your compassion," I say dryly. "I'm hanging up now."
"No! I'm sorry for laughing. It's just that the more we talk, the more I see you as a totally different person than I thought you were. I guess I can understand why Alex likes you."
"Thanks, I think. Remember when I told you I wouldn't let anything happen between me and Alex?"
"Yeah. Just so I get my timetable straight, that was before you kissed him. Right?" She chuckles, then says, "I'm just kidding, Brittany. If you like him, girl, go for it. — Simone Elkeles

I knew, as everyone knows, that the easiest way to attract a crowd is to let it be known that at a given time and a given place some one is going to attempt something that in the event of failure will mean sudden death. That's what attracts us to the man who paints the flagstaff on the tall building, or to the 'human fly' who scales the walls of the same building. — Harry Houdini

What did the fish say when it hit a concrete wall?" he asks me. We're sitting on the bank of a stream and he's tying a fly onto my fishing rod, wearing a cowboy hat and a red lumberjack-style flannel shirt over a gray tee. So adorable.
"What?" I say, wanting to laugh and he hasn't even told me the punch line.
He grins. Unbelievable how gorgeous he is. And that he's mine. He loves me and I love him and how rare and beautiful is that?
"Dam!" he says. — Cynthia Hand

I want every scene to feel electric and I try to finish the filming period with a clear trajectory: a beginning, a middle, and hopefully an end.I hate "fly on the wall." It infers that I don't relate to the people we're with and that I don't get affected by events. I like it when people talk to me. I never say things like "Don't look at the camera" - how bossy! — Kim Longinotto

Black Cat
A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:
just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.
She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once
as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Oh wow, there's another fly on the wall! Look, there's a new dog sleeping on the sidewalk. Yippee. — R.J. Palacio

That song ["Money to Burn"] is me being a fly on the wall in situations in LA. I mean, I've seen the way a lot of people operate and I've seen that sort of thing go down. There's a lot of rich kids with a little bit of extra money. — Ladyhawke

you're the fly on the wall hearing all, seeing all

ears of a wall hearing all the secrets

perhaps you're the vines creeping over

the old abandoned mansion walls

dusty, soulless and dead

bringing a certain curious life to rubble

and I think you're the jewel-eyed gecko

sneaking around the warm summer walls

between jasmine and olive branches

sticky pad toes, clinging to the walls

peeking in at lonely summer spicy love-making

through silk curtains from the bright orient

breathing in incense and tasting decadence

climbing the sharply barbed walls

the smooth cemented white-washed walls

because walls breathe too — Moonshine Noire

For my part, as a filmmaker, I've never been a fly-on-the-wall documentarian. I have no commitment to that method. I believe it's a lie. — Joshua Oppenheimer

If you acknowledge that filming is an occasion where people express things they might not otherwise express, that offers a much more insightful analysis of why documentaries - even of the fly-on-the-wall variety - are powerful. — Joshua Oppenheimer

Q: You'er presented with a smooth-faced, eight-foot-high wooden wall. Your objective? Get over it. To, like, save comrades or something. How to accomplish this?
A: Take a running start, brace one foot against the wall, throw one hand to the top, try to hang on long enough for a comrade to either grab your hand at the top or for another comrade to push your butt up from below. It takes team work!
BKA (bird kid answer): Or you could just, like, fly over it. — James Patterson

Flying has always been to me this wonderful metaphor. In order to fly you have to trust what you can't see. Up on the mountain ridges where very few people have been I have thought back to what every flyer knows. That there is this special world in which we dwell that's not marked by boundaries, it's not a map. We're not hedged about with walls and desks. So often in an office the very worst thing that can happen is you could drop your pencil. Out there's a reminder that are a lot worse things, and a lot greater rewards. — Richard Bach

I would love to be a fly on the wall watching other directors and actors to see what their process is like. — Chiwetel Ejiofor

I never shot on sets, but if I was traveling somewhere or on location, I would always have my camera, and I'd always be - it's that kind of fly on the wall approach to photography, though. I don't engage the subject. I like to sneak around, skulk about in the dark. — Jessica Lange

Anon from the castle walls The crescent banner falls, And the crowd beholds instead, Like a portent in the sky, Iskander's banner fly, The Black Eagle with double head. And shouts ascend on high ... ' Long live Scanderbeg. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It's kind of a little fly-on-the-wall look at these people trying to stay sane. — John Gallagher Jr.

Love is like a fly on the wall, you must catch it while you can. — Rachael JanLynnette McCormick

I wouldn't mind being a fly on the wall in a few Victorian parlours. — Sarah Waters

He came face-to-face with the rude paradox fame had dealt him: The secret of his extraordinary art had been his ability to observe human interaction anonymously, thereby gaining insight into the emotions on display in ordinary life
it was his ability to become a fly-on-the-wall that made him famous, and fame had destroyed his ability to become a fly-on-the-wall. — C.R. Strahan

She ran, and leaned to the wall, until her face was close to mine and her breath came on me.
I said, 'I'll do it. I'll go with you. I love you, and I cannot give you up. Only tell me what I must do and I will do it!'
Then I saw her eye, and it was black, and my own face swam in it, pale as a pearl. And then, it was like Pa and the looking-glass. My soul left me - I felt it fly from me and lodge in her. — Sarah Waters