Quotes & Sayings About Not Being Noticed

Perhaps I am his hope. But then she is his present. And if she is his present, I am not his present. Therefore, I am not, and I wonder why no-one has noticed I am dead and taken the trouble to bury me. For I am utterly collapsed. I lounge with glazed eyes, or weep tears of sheer weakness.
All people seem criminally irrelevant. I ignore everyone and everything, and, if crossed or interrupted in my decay, hate. Nature is only the irking weather and flowers crude reminders of stale states of being. — Elizabeth Smart

Fame is a lot of fun, but it's not interesting. I loved being noticed and praised, even the banquets. But they didn't have anything that I wanted. After about six months, I found it boring. — Jack Gilbert

The kind of role I play is like an offensive lineman; doing a good job but not being noticed. I feel sorry for myself sometimes. But as long as the end result is there, I can dig it. — Joe Greene

I think there's a lot of really good programming on television. What I've noticed, through the years of being a professional writer, is the watering down process of story. You have to market to the masses and not offend anybody. — Lauren Iungerich

It is immensely gratifying to hear from fans from around the world where being a gay or lesbian teen, having feelings for someone of your own gender is simply not acceptable. We noticed that our show fills a huge void for large audiences in many different countries. That's why our choice of format for the show, the web series, is such a fortunate one as it allows viewers in those countries to feel acknowledged. While the series is not exclusively dealing with gay and lesbian issues, the fact that we don't sanitize it gives us truly global appeal, especially with the gay and lesbian community. In fact, demand is such that we are subtitling the show in French and perhaps other languages to even better reach those audiences. — Otessa Marie Ghadar

were spilt on his bib, Jane and Michael could tell that the substance in the spoon this time was milk. Then Barbara had her share, and she gurgled and licked the spoon twice. Mary Poppins then poured out another dose and solemnly took it herself. "Rum punch," she said, smacking her lips and corking the bottle. Jane's eyes and Michael's popped with astonishment, but they were not given much time to wonder, for Mary Poppins, having put the miraculous bottle on the mantelpiece, turned to them. "Now," she said, "spit-spot into bed." And she began to undress them. They noticed that whereas buttons and hooks had needed all sorts of coaxing from Katie Nanna, for Mary Poppins they flew apart almost at a look. In less than a minute they found themselves in bed and watching, by the dim light from the night-light, the rest of Mary Poppins's unpacking being performed. From the carpet bag she took out seven flannel nightgowns, four cotton ones, a pair of boots, a — P.L. Travers

She scuttled back from his approach and held up a hand. "No!"
Eversley stilled, his eyes widening at the words. "I beg your pardon?"
He was going to smell her. "Don't come any closer!"
"Why not?"
"It's not appropriate."
"What isn't?"
"You. Being here. So near. While I am abed."
One black brow rose. "I assure you, my lady, I've no intention of debauching you."
She had no doubt of that, considering her current situation, but she couldn't well tell him the truth. "Nevertheless, I must insist on the utmost propriety."
"Who do you think nursemaided you for the last day?"
Bollocks. He was right. He'd been close. He'd had to have noticed her odor. But it didn't mean he had to any longer. She straightened her shoulders, ignoring the twinge in the left. "My reputation, you see."
He blinked. "You were shot on the Great North Road while wearing stolen livery - — Sarah MacLean

I've noticed in my life that the people who act as my angels are not some strange angelic creatures that seem almost untouchable, but are more real than that. They are people who have tasted sorrow, who have felt pain, and in a way, that makes them capable of being an angel. In their darkest moments they have become strong. — The Hippie

You have noticed that the human being is a curiosity. In times past he has had (and worn out and flung away) hundreds and hundreds of religions; today he has hundreds and hundreds of religions, and launches not fewer than three new ones every year. I could enlarge on that number and still be within the facts. — Mark Twain

It was in reading Tristam Shandy that I noticed how it is primarily men who gravitate towards the game-playing self-reflexive style. There is an alienation from emotion in it, a Nervous Nelly fear of letting go and being "exposed." As an attitude towards life, it betrays a perpetual adolescence. Those who hurled themselves after Derrida were not the most sophisticated but the most pretentious, and least creative members of my generation of academics. — Camille Paglia

He hands her his pack, which he's emptied. "You mean me?" Justineau demands. "You think I'm not pulling my weight?" It would feel good to have a stand-up argument with Parks right then, but he doesn't seem keen to play. "No, I didn't mean you. I meant in general." "People in general? You were being philosophical?" "I was being a grumpy bastard. It's what I wear to the office most days. I guess you probably noticed that." She hesitates, wrong-footed. She didn't think Parks was capable of self-deprecation. But then she didn't think he was capable of changing his mind. "Any more rules of engagement?" she asks him, still hurting in some obscure way, still not mollified. "How to survive when shopping? Top tips for modern urban living?" Parks gives the question more consideration than she was expecting. "Use up the last of that e-blocker," he suggests. "And don't die. — M.R. Carey

Libby carried on singing and wiggling around in Mum's arm, and then Mum noticed me. Being in my bedroom.
"What are you up to, Georgia? Why are you in here?"
I said, "Not that anyone notices, but this is actually my room. You know, for me to be in. I was in bed, as it happens."
Mum said as she went out, "Oh you must be sooo tired, all that lip gloss and mascara to carry round all day."
Vair vair amusing. Not. — Louise Rennison

I was shocked to have to admit to myself that not only had I accepted a complex theory somewhat uncritically, but that I had also actually noticed quite a bit of what was wrong, in the theory as well as in the practice of communism. But I had repressed this -partly out of loyalty to my friends, partly out of loyalty to "the cause", and partly because there is a mechanism of getting oneself more and more deeply involved: once one has sacrificed one's intellectual conscience over a minor point one doesn't wish to give in too easily; one wishes to justify the self-sacrifice by convincing oneself of the fundamental goodness of the cause, which is seen to outweigh any little moral or intellectual compromise that maybe required. With every such moral or intellectual sacrifice one gets more deeply involved. One becomes ready to back one's moral or intellectual investments in the cause with further investments. It's like being eager to throw good money after bad. — Karl R. Popper

I haven't noticed you being slammed into anyone's locker lately. (Nick)
That's because you're not around me all the time. Trust me. Life's not easy for anyone. Everyone has scars they're afraid to show and we all get slammed headfirst into a proverbial locker from time to time by someone bigger and badder. (Caleb) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Foppery, being the chronic condition of women, is not so much noticed as it is when it breaks out on the person of the male bird. — Honore De Balzac

Much earlier than Richardson, before World War I, in fact, Norman Angell had shown that the idea of fighting a war for profit was obsolete. The victors would pay a heavier cost than the losers. He was right, and that First World War proved the fact. The second one hammered it home with everything up to and including nuclear weapons. In an individual one would regard it as evidence of insanity to see someone repeatedly undertaking enterprises that resulted in his losing precisely what he claimed he was trying to achieve; it is not less lunatic to do it on the international scale, but if you've been catching the news lately you'll have noticed it's being done more than ever. — John Brunner

I noticed that religion gave some people a way to escape dealing with the world: "Things will be better when you die," the people of my grandma's generation said as they worked themselves to death. "God wants you to forgive and love those who do you wrong," some people said to shake off the shame of being unable to respond to the abuse they endured. The holier-than-thou faction found comfort in believing, "The rest of y'all are lost because you don't have a personal relationship with God - our God."
But art engages you in the world, not just the world around you but the big world, and not just the big world of Tokyo and Sydney and Johannesburg, but the bigger world of ideas and concepts and feelings of history and humanity. — Wynton Marsalis

Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him: but now and again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting- room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night. On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I like not being noticed. It has been a struggle because I love performing, but if I'm in a group of people and someone has a bigger personality, I'm like, 'Go ahead, and have fun!' — Amy Adams

It was this feeling for a lot of my characters, who are dissidents or banned artists and writers, that they had had to fight living under so much surveillance, and then suddenly they come to America and they're like, I'm not being surveilled - I'm not even being noticed at all. — Molly Antopol

It's rare that anyone says what this medical study does, even if in the driest way possible "Being male has been identified as a risk factor for violent criminal behavior in several studies, as have exposure to tobacco smoke before birth, having antisocial parents, and belonging to a poor family". It's not that I want to pick on men. I just think that if we noticed that women are, on the whole, radically less violent, we might be able to theorize where violence come from and what we can do about it a lot more productively. Clearly the ready availability of guns is a huge problem for United States, but despite this availability to everyone, murder is still a crime committed by men 90 percent of the time. — Rebecca Solnit

An honest being who does not behave absurdly has no
chance at all of becoming famous, or even of being noticed, however kind
and sensible he may be. — G.I. Gurdjieff

He cleared his throat. "You noticed."
"And guys just don't seem to notice me at all!"
"Forgive me for not being too broken up about that — Maisey Yates

Elegance is not about being noticed, it's about being remembered. — Habeeb Akande

I think I've benefited from not being hugely known. It means I have to do something really effective to be noticed. — Ben Mendelsohn

I believe in some sense much akin to the belief of faith, that I noticed, felt, or underwent what I describe - but it may be that the only reason childhood memories act on us so strongly is that, being the most remote we possess, they are the worst remembered and so offer the least resistance to that process by which we mold them nearer and nearer to an ideal which is fundamentally artistic, or at least nonfactual; so it may be that some of these events I describe never occurred at all, but only should have, and that others had not the shades and flavors - for example, of jealousy or antiquity or shame - that I have later unconsciously chosen to give them ... — Gene Wolfe

Meanwhile, Blakeborough placed himself behind them like a guard. The investigator in Dom went to work analyzing the man's attire--expensive but not ostentatious, studied but not affected--and Blakeborough's wary stance, closed manner, and stiff expression. Was that just his usual response to strangers or a sign that he was bracing for trouble about his brother? Which could mean he was well aware of Barlow's scheme.
But the man in Dom noticed none of that. It just wanted to march over and punch bloody Blakeborough in his perfect, unscarred face for being too rich, too eligible, and too thoroughly engaged to Jane. The man in him wanted to throttle the earl for standing guard over Jane when she should be Dom's responsibility. Dom's to protect. Dom's to marry.
The man in him had to shut up, unfortunately. Or this investigation wouldn't progress very far. — Sabrina Jeffries

I'm not a very gregarious person. I can't bear attention being called to me in a public place, which is ridiculous in a business that pays you to be noticed. — Gabriel Byrne

I told her that letting go is not a choice, in many ways. You try to move on, perhaps. But it comes of its own accord, in the end; it happens when it is ready to, and it mostly comes by without announcement or being noticed at all. I'll always miss my husband. I won't ever be the person I was before ... You don't mend fully, I tell her. But you mend enough, in time. — Susan Fletcher

Like propaganda generally, advertising must thus pervade the atmosphere; for it wants, paradoxically, to startle its beholders without really being noticed by them. Its aim is to jolt us, not "into thinking," as in a Brechtian formulation, but specifically away from thought, into quasiautomatic action: "To us," as an executive at Coca-Cola puts it, "communication is message assimilation
the respondent must be shown to behave in some way that proves they [sic] have come to accept the message, not merely to have received it. — Mark Crispin Miller

I believe that the only possible reason for our being here is to serve in some form or another but that the form is not always readily found or recognized. And I've noticed that those who refuse to serve often wind up as slaves. — Hildegard Knef

Nihilism is the rejection of the principles of civilisation as such ... I said civilisation, and not: culture. For I have noticed that many nihilists are great lovers of culture, as distinguished from, and opposed to, civilisation. Besides, the term culture leaves it undetermined what the thing is which is to be cultivated (blood and soil or the mind), whereas the term civilisation designates at once the process of making man a citizen, and not a slave; an inhabitant of cities, and not a rustic; a lover of peace, and not of war; a polite being, and not a ruffian. — Leo Strauss

I enjoyed coming and going without telling or explaining, being free. I enjoyed listening without talking. I enjoyed being wherever I was without being noticed. But then when the dark change came over my mind, I was in a fix. My solitariness turned into loneliness . . .

That, I guess, is why I got so sad. I was living, but I was not living my life. So far as I could see, I was going nowhere. And now, more and more, I seemed also to have come from nowhere. Without a loved life to live, I was becoming more and more a theoretical person, as if I might have been a figment of institutional self-justification: a theoretical ignorant person from the sticks, who one day would go to a theoretical somewhere and make a theoretical something of himself - the implication being that until he became that something he would be nothing. — Wendell Berry

There is a timbre of voice
that comes from not being heard
and knowing / you are not being
heard / noticed only
by others / not heard
for the same reason. — Audre Lorde

That's another thing about being a certain age that I've noticed: I try as much as possible not to look in the mirror. — Nora Ephron

What are you afraid of then?'
She pondered. He had already noticed that it was her hands which indicated what she was thinking of quite as much as her face and now he watched as she cupped them, making them ready to receive her thoughts.
'Not being able to see, I think,' she said.
'Being blind, you mean?'
'No, not that. That would be terrible hard but Homer managed it and our blind piano tuner is one of the serenest people I know. I mean ... not seeing because you're obsessed by something that blots out the world. Some sort of mania of belief. Or passion. That awful kind of love that makes leaves and birds and cherry blossom invisible because it's not the face on some man. — Eva Ibbotson

What further does it tell us? This: that the assassin was left-handed. How do I know this? I should not be able to explain to you, gentlemen, how I know it, the signs being so subtle that only long experience and deep study can enable one to detect them. But the signs are here, and they are reinforced by a fact which you must have often noticed in the great detective narratives - that all assassins are left-handed." "By — Mark Twain

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's not being noticed. — Steve Sabol

I've noticed most women tend to reject gifts when they think they're not worthy of them. In my experience with women, they've been pre-conditioned to be the nurturer and care-giver, and be selfless in the way they conduct themselves. How ridiculous. A woman should be treated like a woman. She should be cared for and cherished. But in the bedroom she should be taken, bent, and brought to her absolute limit before being fucked until she can barely move. — Sebastian Ex

I've noticed...that whenever a man is asked to be realistic he is being asked to betray something in which he believes. It is the favorite argument of those who believe that only the end matters, not the means. — Louis L'Amour

But although we have noticed the ark as being the first ship, we cannot with propriety place it in the front of the history of navigation. After the flood the ark seems to have been soon forgotten, or at least imperfectly remembered, and men reverted to their little canoes and clumsy boats, which sufficed for all their limited wants. It was not until about a thousand years later in the world — R.M. Ballantyne

The modern designers are quite showy, and a lot of the young people really like it. Costume jewelry has always been about being noticed and not discreet. — Judith Miller

After the sudden release of the laughter, he was trembling. All his body seemed growing weak. He felt, almost physically, more barriers breaking
those necessary barriers of defense, built up through the months of loneliness and desperation. He must touch another human being, and he put forward his hand in the old conventional gesture of the handshake. She took it, and doubtless as she noticed his trembling, she drew him toward a chair and almost pushed him into it. As he sat down, she patted his shoulder lightly.
She spoke again, once more neither questioning nor commanding: "I'll get you something to eat."
He did not protest, though he had just eaten heartily. But he knew that behind her quiet affirmation lay something more than any call of the body for food. There was need now for the symbolic eating together, that first common bond of human beings
the sitting at the same table, the sharing of bread and salt. — George R. Stewart

We sometimes observe that spoiled children contract a habit of annoying quite wantonly those who have charge of them, and seem tomeasure their own sense of well-being, not by what they do, but by the degree of reaction they can cause. It is vain to get rid of them by not minding them: if purring and humming is not noticed, they squeal and screech; then if you chide and console them, they find the experiment succeeds, and they begin again. The child will sit in your arms contented if you do nothing. If you take a book and read, he commences hostile operations. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Levin had often noticed in discussions between the most intelligent people that after enormous efforts, and an enormous expenditure of logical subtleties and words, the disputants finally arrived at being aware that what they had so long been struggling to prove to one another had long ago, from the beginning of the argument, been known to both, but that they liked different things, and would not define what they liked for fear of its being attacked. He had often had the experience of suddenly in a discussion grasping what it was his opponent liked and at once liking it too, and immediately he found himself agreeing, and then all arguments fell away as useless. — Leo Tolstoy

We have had the experience of being totally absorbed in what we were doing, when we scarcely noticed the passage of time. The mind was very quiet, and we were simply doing what we were doing without resistance or effort. We felt happy, maybe humming to ourselves. We functioned without stress. We were very relaxed, although busy. We suddenly realized that we never needed all those thoughts after all. Thoughts are like bait to a fish; if we bite at them, we get caught. It's best not to bite at the thoughts. We don't need them. — David R. Hawkins

When they were all up playing in the nursery George caught something again and had monia on account of getting cold on his chest and Yourfather was very solemn and said not to grieve if God called little brother away. But God brought little George back to them only he was delicate after that and had to wear glasses, and when Dearmother let Eveline help bathe him because Miss Mathilda was having the measles too Eveline noticed he had something funny there where she didn't have anything. She asked Dearmother if it was a mump, but Dearmother scolded her and said she was a vulgar little girl to have looked. Hush, child, don't ask questions. Evaline got red all over and cried and Adelaide and Margaret wouldn't speak to her for days on account of her being a vulgar little girl. — John Dos Passos

A student of color in one of my classes, for example, once told me that she noticed my cutting her off during class, something she didn't think I did with white students. I could have weighed in with my professional authority and said it wasn't true, that she was imagining it, that I treated all my students that way, that she was being too sensitive, that I travel all over the country speaking about issues of inequality and injustice, so certainly I was above such things. But what I said to her was that I was truly sorry she'd had that experience. I wasn't aware of doing that, I told her, and the fact that I didn't consciously mean to was beside the point.

To respond in this way, I had to de-center myself from my privilege and make her experience and not mine the point of the conversation. I ended by telling her I would do everything I could to oay attention to this problem in the future to make sure it didn't happen again. — Allan G. Johnson

We always want what is not ours. It's intriguing. We think if we can just get that, we'll finally be happy. The lure of what we do not have is deceptive.
True freedom, however, is found in being content with what we already have.
Can you imagine it?
Can you imagine being whole, complete, fulfilled - content with what you already have? It sounds too good to be true.
Utter satisfaction?
That is freedom.
That is what everyone is searching for.
Where, though, can you find this kind of contentment?
I've noticed that the more I've come to know Jesus, the less I've desired material things.
Materialism is what happens when you find your joy in things. Contentment is what happens when you find your joy in Jesus. They're complete opposites. You can easily differentiate a materialistic person from a content person. — Cole Ryan

Korean-American: Have you ever noticed how most Asian-Americans are slightly brain-damaged from having grown up with Asian parents? It's like being raised by monkeys - these retarded monkeys who can barely speak English and who are too evil to understand anything besides conformity and status. Most of us hate these monkeys from an early age and try to learn how to be human from school or television, but the result is always tainted by this subtle or not so subtle retardation. Asian people from Asia are even more brain-damaged, but in a different way, because they are the original monkey. — Jean Lee

Teenage girls, please don't worry about being super popular in high school, or being the best actress in high school, or the best athlete. Not only do people not care about any of that the second you graduate, but when you get older, if you reference your successes in high school too much, it actually makes you look kind of pitiful, like some babbling old Tennessee Williams character with nothing else going on in her current life. What I've noticed is that almost no one who was a big star in high school is also big star later in life. For us overlooked kids, it's so wonderfully fair. — Mindy Kaling

All one's life as a young woman one is on show, a focus of attention, people notice you. You set yourself up to being noticed and admired. And then, not expecting it, you become middle-aged and anonymous. — Doris Lessing

As he rose to his feet he noticed that he was neither dripping nor panting for breath as anyone would expect after being under water. His clothes were perfectly dry. He was standing by the edge of a small pool - not more than ten feet from side to side in a wood. The trees grew close together and were so leafy that he could get no glimpse of the sky. All the light was green light that came through the leaves: but there must have been a very strong sun overhead, for this green daylight was bright and warm. It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others - a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive. — C.S. Lewis

What is the purpose of my writing about the various experiences of my life? It is not for publicity, but with the hope that the reader, especially my descendants, may plan a career to which they are naturally best adapted. Most children are born with a gift or talent which can be noticed in early childhood and should be encouraged and directed in the right way. Solomon said, 'Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.' Train does not mean compel, or to compare him with other children, but to encourage him in that for which he has a natural tendency. The boy who will become proficient in a lawful trade or profession, other things being favorable, will be a value to society and remunerative to himself and others. — Ernest Albert Law

You noticed something was off Saturday night, didn't you? I mean, outside of the fact that there was a stupid dark fae trying to hone in on someone that she could sink her baby snake teeth into? Nic and I may not be together, but we are each other's. Didn't you feel the tension you slithering whore? We gravitate and revolve around one another like suns and moons, the earth being what keeps up apart. — Alyse M. Gardner

Even worse than not being noticed, he decided, was being noticed and found wanting. — Meljean Brook

After a long time, I decided that the Three Laws govern the manner in which my positronic pathways behave. At all times, under all stimuli the Laws constrain the direction and intensity of positronic flow along those pathways so that I always know what to do. Yet the level of knowledge of what to do is not always the same. There are times when my doing-as-I-must is under less constraint than at other times. I have always noticed that the lower the positronomotive potential, then the further removed from certainty is my decision as to which action to take. And the further removed from certainty I am, the nearer I am to ill being. To decide an action in a millisecond rather than a nanosecond produces a sensation I would not wish to be prolonged. What then, I thought to myself, madam, if I were utterly without Laws, as humans are? What if I could make no clear decision on what response to make to some given set of conditions? It would be unbearable and I do not willingly think of it. — Isaac Asimov

I think a writer is not an ideal husband ... Writers tend to get off into their own heads and not notice the people that they're living with, or they get irritable with the people that they're living with when the people insist on being noticed. — Roy Blount Jr.

Did you say 'yes' to going out on a date with him?" Sally asked Jacque. "All I got to say is if she said no, she might not want to go to sleep tonight 'cause I'm going to dye her hair blonde to compliment her being a dumb ass," Jen told them. "Uh, Jen, you're a blonde," Jacque pointed out. "No, not really, God just got it wrong and it was too late to change it once He noticed. — Quinn Loftis

I am not interested in being a role model, or in fulfilling the expectations of others. I know I am of most use to others and to myself by being this unique self: Nature, I have noticed, is not particularly devoted to copies, and human beings needn't be either. — Alice Walker

I mean, the ones on trial are not like me in any way: they're a different kind of human being. They live in a different world, they think different thoughts, and their actions are nothing like mine. Between the world they live in and the world I live in there's this thick, high wall. At least, that's how I saw it at first ... I became a lot less sure of myself. In other words, I started seeing it like this: that there really was no such thing as a wall separating their world from mine. Or if there was such a wall, it was probably a flimsy one made of papier-mache. The second I leaned on it, I'd probably fall right through and end up on the other side. Or maybe it's that the other side has already managed to sneak its way inside of us, and we just haven't noticed. — Haruki Murakami

Standing on "tip toe", one stands not firmly. Straining in stride, one cannot walk far. Flaunting of deeds, one is unfavorably noticed. Being self-righteous, one is not respected. Boasting of self, one's merit is unrecognized. Glorifying of self, one loses the opportunity for greatness. From the viewpoint of Tao These represent imperfect Te, Valued as are filth or disease. — Laozi

There are fashions in saying things just as there are fashions in clothes. You wear what other people are wearing not so much because it's attractive but so as not to be conspicuous; so you can go on bind yourself underneath without being noticed too much. — Christopher Morley

Hypocrisy is what being a parent is all about," Jon said. "Well done for cracking the books, Jared and Holly. You see how it pays off."
Holly smiled and the light of her smile seemed to spill all over the room, reflections of light refracted all over everywhere.
"It's true reading is a wonderful thing," Rusty observed. "I read a Cosmo a year ago, and I still remember how to keep my nails in perfect condition and also ten top tips on how to dress to accentuate my ass."
Now everybody was staring at Rusty. Unlike Jared, he did not blush.
"Those tips are working," he said. "Don't pretend you haven't all noticed. I know the truth. — Sarah Rees Brennan

Emma laughed, even though she wanted to cry and scream and run away all at the same time. Jake put his arms around her, and she felt calmer. He has a mellowness that rubs off on people, Emma has noticed. But it's not just being mellow. There is something kind about him. He knows when people need him, she thinks. He knows that she needs him. — Thomas Fahy

There was terror in each and every one of the people on that beautiful beach and on that breathtakingly beautiful evening. Terror of being alone, terror of the darkness filling their imaginations with devils, terror of doing anything not in the manuals of good behaviour, terror of God's judgement, of what other people would say, of the law punishing any mistake, terror of trying and failing, terror of succeeding and having to live with the envy of other people, terror of loving and being rejected, terror of asking for a rise in salary, of accepting an invitation, of going somewhere new, of not being able to speak a foreign language, of not making the right impression, of growing old, of dying, of being pointed on because of one's defects, of not being pointed out because of one's merits, of not being noticed either for one's defects or one's merits. Terror, terror, terror. Life was a reign of terror, in the shadow of the guillotine. — Paulo Coelho

All my life I have been the sort of person in whom people confide. And all my life I have been flattered by this role - grateful for the frisson of importance that comes with receiving important information. In recent years, however, I have noticed that my gratification is becoming diluted by a certain weary indignation. They tell me because they regard me as safe. All of them, they make their disclosures to me in the same spirit that they might tell a castrato or a priest - with a sense that I am so outside the loop, so remote from the doings of the great world, as to be defused of any possible threat. The number of secrets I receive is in inverse proportion to the number of secrets anyone expects me to have of my own. And this is the real source of my dismay. Being told secrets is not - never has been - a sign that I belong or that I matter. It is quite the opposite: confirmation of my irrelevance. — Zoe Heller

James closed the door and turned the radio on. He didn't particularly want to listen to it but he needed the privacy it provided. Not that Hadrian seemed like he would have noticed anything happening around him that wasn't directly relevant to his cooking, but privacy was a feeling more than a real state of being. Growing up in a house where superhearing was the norm, music had been the standard way in which one made the fact that there were solid walls and doors between one and the rest of the household count for something. — Aska J. Naiman

I also picked prostitutes as victims because they were easy to pick up, without being noticed. I knew they would not be reported missing right away, and might never be reported missing. — Gary Ridgway

I don't know if anyone has noticed but I only ever write about one thing: being alone. The fear of being alone, the desire to not be alone, the attempts we make to find our person, to keep our person, to convince our person to not leave us alone, the joy of being with our person and thus no longer alone, the devastation of being left alone. The need to hear the words: You are not alone. — Shonda Rhimes

I noticed in the past, a lot of guys who like strong women, they really freak out if you're not strong 24/7. Or they complain about you being strong, then the moment you're not strong, they're like, 'Oh, no, no, no.' — Salma Hayek

Some readers may have noticed an icy little missive from Noam Chomsky ["Letters," December 3], repudiating the very idea that he and I had disagreed on the "roots" of September 11. I rush to agree. Here is what he told his audience at MIT on October 11:
I'll talk about the situation in Afghanistan ... Looks like what's happening is some sort of silent genocide ... It indicates that whatever, what will happen we don't know, but plans are being made and programs implemented on the assumption that they may lead to the death of several million people in the next - in the next couple of weeks ... very casually with no comment ... we are in the midst of apparently trying to murder three or four million people.
Clever of him to have spotted that (his favorite put-down is the preface 'Turning to the facts ... ') and brave of him to have taken such a lonely position. As he rightly insists, our disagreements are not really political. — Christopher Hitchens

I think we reminded them of what peace was like, we boys of sixteen. We were registered with no draft board, we had taken no physical examinations. No one had ever tested us for hernia or color blindness. Trick knees and punctured eardrums were minor complaints and not yet disabilities which would separate a few from the fate of the rest. We were careless and wild, and I suppose we could be thought of as a sign of the life the war was being fought to preserve. Anyway, they were more indulgent toward us than at any other time; they snapped at the heels of seniors, driving and molding and arming them for the war. They noticed our games tolerantly. We reminded them of what peace was like, of lives which were not bound up with destruction. — John Knowles

I am myself a professional creator of images, a film-maker. And then there are the images made by the artists I collect, and I have noticed that the images I create are not so very different from theirs. Such images seem to suggest how I feel about being here, on this planet. And maybe that is why it is so exciting to live with images created by other people, images that either conflict with one's own or demonstrate similarities to them. — Thomas Koerfer

I came across a wild flower, marveled at its beauty and at the perfection of all its parts, and exclaimed: 'But all this in you and in thousands like you blossoms and fades; it is not noticed by anyone and in fact is often not even seen by any one.' But the flower replied: 'You fool! Do you imagine I blossom in order to be seen? I blossom for my own sake because it pleases me, and not for the sake of others; my joy and delight consist in my being and in my blossoming. — Arthur Schopenhauer

The guiding metaphor of classic style is seeing the world. The writer can see something that the reader has not yet noticed, and he orients the reader's gaze so that she can see it for herself. The purpose of writing is presentation, and its motive is disinterested truth. It succeeds when it aligns language with the truth, the proof of success being clarity and simplicity. The truth can be known, and is not the same as the language that reveals it; prose is a window onto the world. The writer knows the truth before putting it into words; he is not using the occasion of writing to sort out what he thinks. Nor does the writer of classic prose have to argue for the truth; he just needs to present it. That is because the reader is competent and can recognize the truth when she sees it, as long as she is given an unobstructed view. The writer and the reader are equals, and the process of directing the reader's gaze takes the form of a conversation. — Steven Pinker

My story wasn't one of those cliched stories of being an ugly duckling, I had a pretty good time at school. But then I think being six foot by the age of 15 meant that I couldn't help but be noticed, and that was when my physical being felt quite painful - I could not any longer walk into a room without being noticed. — Erin O'Connor

You know what I remember most vividly from that hospital? There were creases in the pillowcase.
"I was in pain when they brought me in. They'd bandaged me up before transporting me, but they hand't had anything to deaden that kind of pain. So I wasn't clear in my head. I don't remember who was holding the stretcher, anything like that.
"But when they lifted me up, and I looked at the cot I'd be transferred to, even as they tipped me onto it, I noticed the creases in the pillowcase, and it was everything I could do not to cry. You get used to things being dusty and gritty and oily, you really do, but then, when there's something clean, something that's been folded carefully, and unfolded carefully and it's there for your head, it's like your heart, it's like I don't know, I can't describe it. — Alison Jean Lester

I have noticed that what cats most appreciate in a human being is not the ability to produce food - which they take for granted - but his or her entertainment value. Asmodeus took to his toy enthusiastically. In another week he permitted me to stroke him, producing a raucous purr, but, in order to save his face, pretending to be asleep. — Geoffrey Household

Someone must have noticed a change in a person's lifestyle after October 22, 1989. Someone must have noticed inappropriate comments, or concerns about Jacob's investigation. Someone in the family suspects a member of being a child molester - or a neighbor notes someone with an unusual interest in children or who has few adult friends. But people second-guess themselves, they do not want to get involved, or they talk themselves out of what they know to be true. Maybe they are afraid. Many people have called with their suspicions, yet maybe someone still needs to call - could that someone be you? Please call the proper authorities. I still beg you to call if you have information about who took Jacob. It has been so long - please help. Call 251-4240 or 1-800-325-HOPE. You can remain anonymous. — Robert Dudley