Looking Sideways Quotes & Sayings

Trying to analyze a situation without enough data was like looking at a photograph of a ball in flight and trying to gauge its direction. Is it going up, down, sideways? Is it about to collide with a baseball bat? Is it moving at all, or is something on the blind side holding it in place? A single frame didn't mean a thing. Patterns were based on data. With enough datapoints, you could predict just about anything. — Marcus Sakey

What were you thinking about just
now while you were looking out the window?" To his surprise, the question flustered her.
"I - wasn't thinking."
"Then what were you doing?" he asked, his curiosity aroused.
A rueful smile touched her inviting lips, and she shot him a sideways look before turning back to the
window. "I was ... talking to God," she admitted. "'Tis a habit I have."
Startled and slightly amused, Royce said, "Really? What did God have to say?"
"I think," she softly replied, "He said, 'You're welcome.' "
"For what?" Royce teased.
Lifting her eyes to his, Jenny solemnly replied, "For you. — Judith McNaught

She wrapped her head in a towel and croaked." That sounded reasonable to me ... except for the paring knife with blood and pieces of hair stuck to it. Lula bent at the waist and examined the towel, wrapped turban style. "Must have been a good clonk she took. Lots of blood." Usually when people die their bodies evacuate and the smell gets bad fast. Mrs. Nowicki didn't smell dead. Mrs. Nowicki smelled like Jim Beam. Carl and I were both registering this oddity, looking at each other sideways when Mrs. Nowicki opened one eye and fixed it on Lula. "YOW!" Lula yelled, jumping back a foot, knocking into Sally. "Her eye popped open!" "The better — Janet Evanovich

When I am no longer a limp noodle and can actually compel my limbs to function, I get off the table and back into my robe. Damien and I leave at the same time, and Jamie's door opens as we're passing. She looks between me and Damien, then glances sideways at her masseuse, a tall blond man with large, capable-looking hands.
"You know," Jamie says dryly, "nothing personal, but I don't think I got the same level of service that she did."
To his credit, the masseuse smiles. "Come," he says, gesturing for her to follow.
"That's the problem," she mutters to me as she passes, "I didn't. — J. Kenner

You are gonna shoot me," he says. "One day." He's still holding Lindsay's hand, he's looking down at where their fingers are wound together and not at Lindsay's face, but his voice is clear. "I ain't thick. I know you'll get sick of me. You can't just let me go, I know too much, you'd be freaked out forever in case I snitched. You'll get proper sick of me one day, not just annoyed, and then you'll shoot me. It's okay."
"I won't get sick of you," Lindsay says. He feels numb and far away, as if its somebody else talking, and almost like he's going to throw up, a sort of lurch in his stomach like when you're at the top of the the Angel tube station escalator and somebody a bit too eager to get on the train shoves you from behind.
"Yeah you will. I'm gonna be with you til I die, though. Least I can say that and know its true, how many people can do that? Bit romantic, really. If you squint, and look at it sideways. — Richard Rider

You can even get used to having a hole in your life where someone used to live. A hole where you thought they'd live for always, except that one day they just step sideways, without looking back or saying good-bye, and vanish forever. — Sally Nicholls

When we came in she had her chair sideways, without even looking up to know that it was us, that the doctors had said that sitting and staring at the snow was a waste of time; she should get involved in something. She laughed and told us it wasn't a waste of time. It would be a waste of time just to stare at snowflakes, but she was counting, and even that might be a waste of time, but she was only counting the ones that were just alike — Ann Beattie

I held a brief debate with myself as to whether I should change my ordinary attire for something smarter. At last I concluded it would be a waste of labour. "Doubtless," though I, "she is some stiff old maid ; for though the daughter of Madame Reuter, she may well number upwards of forty winters; besides, if it were otherwise, if she be both young and pretty, I am not handsome, and no dressing can make me so, therefore I'll go as I am." And off I started, cursorily glancing sideways as I passed the toilet-table, surmounted by a looking-glass: a thin irregular face I saw, with sunk, dark eyes under a large, square forehead, complexion destitute of bloom or attraction; something young, but not youthful, no object to win a lady's love, no butt for the shafts of Cupid. — Charlotte Bronte

I think about the story while I think about other things. This is an important part of the process: I look at it sideways. If I look straight at it, it produces nothing other than what seem like complicated, brilliant designs that fall apart the following morning. In some way stories mature when you're not looking. — Aleksandar Hemon

But what struck me was the book-madness of the place
books lay scattered across the unmade bed and the top of a battered-looking desk, books stood in knee-high piles on the floor, books were crammed sideways and right side up in a narrow bookcase that rose higher than my head and leaned dangerously from the wall, books sat in stacks on top of a dingy dresser. The closet door was propped open by a pile of books, and from beneath the bed a book stuck out beside the toe of a maroon slipper. — Steven Millhauser

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

If you haven't read Alan Fletcher's The Art of Looking Sideways you should be arrested for calling yourself a Designer — Bob Gill

Bashere shrugged, grinning brhind his grey-streaked moustaches, "When I first slept in a saddle, Muad Cheade was Marshal-General. The man was as mad as a hare in spring thaw. Twice every day he searched his bodyservant for poison, and he drank nothing but vinegar and water which he claimed was sovereign against the poison the fellow fed him, but he ate everything the man prepared for as long as I knew him. Once he had a grove of oaks chopped down because they were looking at him. And then insisted they be given decent funerals; he gave the oration. Do you have any idea how long it takes to dig graves for twenty-three oak trees?" "Why didn't somebody do something? His Family?" "Those not as mad as him, or madder, were afraid to look at him sideways. Tenobia's father wouldn't have let anyone touch Cheade anyway. He might have been insane, but he could outgeneral anyone I ever saw. He never lost a battle. He never even came close to losing. — Robert Jordan

On our first date, he bought me a taco, talked at length about the ancients' theories of light, how it streams at angles to align events in space and time, that it is the source of all information, determines every outcome, how we can reflect it to summon aliens using mirrored bowls of water. I asked what the point of it all was, but he didn't seem to hear me. Lying on the grass outside a tennis arena, he held my face toward the sun, stared sideways at my eyeballs, and began to cry. He told me I was the sign he'd been waiting for and, like looking into a crystal ball, he'd just read a private message from God in the silvery vortex of my left pupil. — Ottessa Moshfegh

Nick was still looking at him sideways, but a flush began to appear on his cheeks. Kelly swallowed hard, growing warmer. "You remember that night?" "Yeah, I do." "You ... you were, um ... impressive." "I knew you were watching," Nick murmured. "Exhibitionist." "Voyeur. — Abigail Roux

Peter's first comment was, "I hate Mexican food." Donna said, "Peter," in a warning voice. But I added my two cents worth, "Me, too." Peter looked at me sideways, as if he didn't trust my show of solidarity with him. "Really?" I nodded. "Really." "Ted picked the restaurant," he said. "Think he did it just to be irritating?" I asked. Peter was looking directly at me, eyes a little wide. "Yeah, I do." I nodded. "Me, too." Donna had an open-mouthed astonished look on her face. "Peter, Anita." She turned to Edward. "What are we going to do with the two of them? — Laurell K. Hamilton

He took a deep breath and held out his hand. "We got off to a bad start, but you're obviously a friend of Becks's."
Cole stared at his hand,stumped. He looked at me like, What the hell am I supposed to do with this? I'd never seen him so baffled.It was almost comical.
Then the second-to-last thing that I ever would have anticipated happened. Cole took Jack's hand and shook it. "I'm Neal."
"Jack." Jack briefly glanced sideways at me. "I'll try not to hit you again."
Cole and Jack, shaking hands. I covered my eyes with my fingers,wondering when the world had officially tipped over onto its side.When I lowered my hand, they were both looking at me.I'd had enough awkward.
"Let's go," I said, tugging on Jack's arm.
Cole frowned and looked away. "Take care of our girl," he muttered sarcastically. — Brodi Ashton

Do you wanna go out for lunch? In celebration?" I asked
and then touched my lips in thought. "Or we could swing by the store
and get something really good for dinner?"
Wesley glanced at me sideways with a puzzled expression I
couldn't figure out. He looked back at the road. "Maybe later," he said, chewing on his thumbnail.
"Why? Since we're out, we might as well stop ... ."
"We can't right now. There are things I have to do first," he said,
looking at me with a grin.
"What?" I asked, innocently walking into his trap, though I
should've known better by now.
"Like take you home and fuck you up, down, and sideways," he
answered, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. — J.M. Colail

For she thought that she glimpsed through the dust of the years, a faint flicker of the girl who had lingered in the lanes when the young man Williams and she had been courting. And looking at Williams as he stood before her twitching and bowed, she thought that she glimpsed a faint flicker of the youth, very stalwart and comely, who had bent his head downwards and sideways as he walked and whispered and kissed in the lanes. — Radclyffe Hall

I have much to think on." Tadhg gave him a sideways glance. "I could be using some wisdom."
Sean looked skyward before facing his friend. "Yea, Tadhg I will pray that ye receive wisdom." He took a few steps away, heading back to the house, and added in a loud voice without looking back. "And a set of balls."
Tadhg smiled. The man was the fiercest warrior in the clan. He had always been sorely infatuated with Brighit. — Ashley York

The leg was sent to Robin,' Strike reminded him. 'There's as much chance that she's seen this woman previously as I have. She's my partner. We work the same jobs.'

Robin glanced sideways at Strike. He had never before described her as his partner to somebody else, or not within Robin's hearing. He was not looking at her. Robin switched her attention back to Wardle. Apprehensive though she was, after hearing Strike put her on equal professional footing with himself she knew that, whatever she was about to see, she would not let herself, or him, down. — Robert Galbraith

When I am lonely for boys it's their bodies I miss. I study their hands lifting the cigarettes in the darkness of the movie theaters, the slope of a shoulder, the angle of a hip. Looking at them sideways, I examine them in different lights. My love for them is visual: that is the part of them I would like to possess. Don't move, I think. Stay like that, let me have that. — Margaret Atwood

Well, land sakes!" Hiro says. "Lookee here!" He whips his blade sideways, cutting off both of the businessman's forearms, causing the sword to clatter onto the floor.
"Better fire up the ol' barbeque, Jemima!" Hiro continues, whipping the sword around sideways, cutting the businessman's body in half just above the navel. Then he leans down so he's looking right into the businessman's face. "Didn't anyone tell you," he says, losing the dialect, "that I was a hacker?"
Then he hacks the guy's head off. — Neal Stephenson

My greatest influence is Jimi Hendrix, and if he's been reincarnated, or if he's looking down, sideways, or looking up, I just wanted to tell him that I love him and thank him for opening doors for me. I just wanted to make it beautiful for him. — Meshell Ndegeocello

The zoo cannot but disappoint. The public purpose of zoos is to offer visitors the opportunity of looking at animals. Yet nowherein a zoo can a stranger encounter the look of an animal. At the most, the animal's gaze flickers and passes on. They look sideways. They look blindly beyond. — John Berger

As he reads, his eyes graze each poem's lines like a needle over an LP's grooves, reassembling them into uniform arcades. What he is looking for is key: a gap in the book's mask, a loose thread to unravel its veil. He tries tricks to find new openings- reading sideways, reading upside down, reading white space instead of text- but the words always close ranks like tiles in a mosaic, like crooks in a lineup, and mock him with their blithe expressions. — Martin Seay

Postscript

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you'll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open. — Seamus Heaney

Bonnie who had never hurt a - a harmless thing for malice. Bonnie who was like a kitten making airy pounces at no prey at all. Bonnie with her hair that was called something strawberry but that looked simply as if it was on fire. Bonnie of the translucent skin with the delicate violet fjords and estuaries of veins all over her throat and inner arms. Bonnie who had lately taken to looking at him sideways with her large childlike eyes big and brown under lashes like stars ... — L.J.Smith

He keeps looking at me so oddly."
"Oddly? How? Give me an imitation."
Considering that she had only about a second and a half to do it in, I must say it was a jolly fine exhibition. She opened her mouth and eyes pretty wide and let her jaw drop sideways, and managed to look so like a dyspeptic calf that I recognized the symptoms immediately.
"Oh, that's all right," I said. "No need to be alarmed. He's simply in love with you. — P.G. Wodehouse

He had become completely mad in his movements; He seemed to be doing everything at the same time. It was a shaking of the head, up and down, sideways; jerky, vigorous hands; quick walking, sitting, crossing the legs, uncrossing, getting up, rubbing the hands, rubbing his fly, hitching his pants, looking up and saying 'Am,' and sudden slitting of the eyes to see everywhere; and all the time he was grabbing me by the ribs and talking, talking — Jack Kerouac

I will be so glad to take the picture and pose and look good for the picture. But when you catch me while I'm looking real sideways and the picture's ugly as hell, I don't want you to have the picture like that! — Busta Rhymes