Inconspicuous Quotes

I wonder if only artists can feel peace like this - such a gentle, inconspicuous peace that an ordinary person might not even notice. ~ Tessa Emily Hall

I used to stalk this dude I went to high school with. I would close up the bread shop where I worked, take one of the loaves that was intended for donation to the soup kitchen, then drive my car to his parents' house and park close enough to see inside, but far enough away to be inconspicuous. Then I would sit there with the engine running, tearing off chunks of apple-cinnamon bread and listening to De La Soul while imagining our life together.
I am a deeply troubled person ~ Samantha Irby

Fellow-servant of God, your sphere may be an humble and inconspicuous one; the flock to which God has called you to minister may be a small one; but faithfulness to your trust is what is required of you. There may be an Eliab ready to taunt you, and speak contemptuously of "those few sheep in the wilderness" (1 Sam. 17:28), as there was for David to encounter; but regard not their sneers. It is written, "His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord" (Matthew 25:21). ~ Arthur W. Pink

And I feel faintly ordinary, faintly inconspicuous, faintly unsuspicious. And it's good, so good. ~ Sara Baume

Hotel Du Lac
Edith, once again anonymous, and accepting her anonymity, made an appropriately inconspicuous exit. And, sitting in the deserted salon, the first to arrive from the dining room, she felt her precarious dignity hard-pressed and about to succumb in the light of her earlier sadness. The pianist, sitting down to play, gave her a brief nod. She nodded back, and thought how limited her means of expression had become: nodding to the pianist or to Mme de Bonneuil, listening to Mrs Pusey, using a disguised voice in the novel she was writing and, with all of this, waiting for a voice that remained silent, hearing very little that meant anything to her at all. The dread implications of this condition made her blink her eyes and vow to be brave, to do better, not to give way. But it was not easy. ~ Anita Brookner

She ducked from her doorway and pressed on, neither too fast nor too slow, soft bootheels silent on the dewy cobbles, her unexceptional hood drawn down to an inconspicuous degree, the very image of a person with just the average amount to hide. ~ George R R Martin

National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars. ~ Carl Sagan

I am following my fishie. La la laaaa. Because my fish knows where to go. My fish is the Borghal Rantipole who I made look like a fishie because I am so clever and I can do things like that if I want ... La la la ... It knows many thingummies. The Borghal Rantipole that is. And now it is inconspicuous too as well. ~ Neil Gaiman

If you will study the history of Christ's ministry from Baptism to Ascension, you will discover that it is mostly made up of little words, little deeds, little prayers, little sympathies, adding themselves together in unwearied succession. The Gospel is full of divine attempts to help and heal, in the body, mind and heart, individual men. The completed beauty of Christ's life is only the added beauty of little inconspicuous acts of beauty -- talking with the woman at the well; going far up into the North country to talk with the Syrophenician woman; showing the young ruler the stealthy ambition laid away in his heart, that kept him out of the kingdom of Heaven; shedding a tear at the grave of Lazarus; teaching a little knot of followers how to pray; preaching the Gospel one Sunday afternoon to two disciples going out to Emmaus; kindling a fire and broiling fish, that His disciples might have a breakfast waiting for them when they came ashore after a night of fishing, cold, tired, discouraged. All of these things, you see, let us in so easily into the real quality and tone of God's interests, so specific, so narrowed down, so enlisted in what is small, so engrossed in what is minute. ~ Charles Henry Parkhurst

I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible as I lay the sausage against my ear. Abruptly, my cell phone went dead. A drop of grease dribbled into the dead center of my ear, creeping like a worm down onto my neck and below the collar of my shirt. A group of men and women in business suits walked by, swerving to avoid me. Across the street, a homeless-looking guy was staring at me, curious. Yep, this was pretty much rock bottom. As I was about to reach for a napkin and at least get my money's worth by eating the bratwurst while still hot, I heard it. Dave? Can you hear me? ~ David Wong

I decide that if I ever get to come back here under different, nonstressful circumstances, I will stay at this hotel and drink fruity drinks and lay in the sand until my skin looks like it had a makeout session with the sun. But today, I'm looking for an inconspicuous way into the water.
We head out of the lobby and get waylaid by hula dancers in grass skirts handing out necklaces of flowers. Apparently Toraf doesn't like necklaces of flowers; as one of the women raises it above his head, he slaps her hand away. I show him, as I accept the gift around my neck, that the woman with the coconut boobs was just trying to be his friend. Just like all the women he's come across so far.
"Humans are too weird," he whispers, unconvinced. I wonder what Toraf would think of Disney World.
Our hotel is right on the water, so we pass through the lobby to the back. The beach is lined with lounge chairs and umbrellas and people scantily clad and people who shouldn't be scantily clad. ~ Anna Banks

Ice cubes likely sell more alcohol for the distilling industry than attractive models in cheesecake poses. The inconspicuous ice cubes often hide the invisible sell - invisible, that is, to the conscious mind. ~ Wilson Bryan Key

Hey, you wanna drop back a few paces? Did you forget how spying works? You're supposed to at least aim for unobtrusive. The others pretty much have it down, but you're about as inconspicuous as a drag queen at a Girl Scout meeting. ~ Rachel Vincent

Nothing more aggravating than a seamless, unremitting irony which leaves you no time to breathe and still less to think; which instead of being inconspicuous, occasional, is massive, automatic, at the antipodes of its essentially delicate nature. Which in any case is how it is used in Germany, a nation which, having meditated upon it the most, is least capable of wielding it. ~ Emil M. Cioran

During the Society's early years, no member personified the organization's eccentricities or audacious mission more than Sir Francis Galton. A cousin of Charles Darwin's, he had been a child prodigy who, by the age of four, could read and recite Latin. He went on to concoct myriad inventions. They included a ventilating top hat; a machine called a Gumption-Reviver, which periodically wet his head to keep him awake during endless study; underwater goggles; and a rotating-vane steam engine. Suffering from periodic nervous breakdowns––"sprained brain," as he called it––he had a compulsion to measure and count virtually everything. He quantified the sensitivity of animal hearing, using a walking stick that could make an inconspicuous whistle; the efficacy of prayer; the average age of death in each profession (lawyers: 66.51; doctors: 67.04); the exact amount of rope needed to break a criminal's neck while avoiding decapitation; and levels of boredom (at meetings of the Royal Geographical Society he would count the rate of fidgets among each member of the audience). ~ David Grann

I was on a 747 flight out of Denver with four flight attendants on the plane. One of the flight attendants got off the plane to go check someone's carry-on bag in the cargo hold, and while she was gone, the door closed and we began to taxi out. While we were giving the demo, we looked out the window of the airplane to see the flight attendant running alongside the plane in the snow, waving and yelling and trying to catch up to us. 'Did you notice that we're missing someone?' I said to the other flight attendant. 'Yes, but try to keep it low-key - there's a supervisor on board!' Well, it's hard to keep it low-key when someone is running alongside your plane, waving and screaming. The plane stopped and the air stairs went down so she could get on board, and my co-worker said, 'Tell her to try to be inconspicuous when she gets back on.' Well, she had to walk the entire length of the plane to get back to her station, and everybody on board broke into applause. ~ Betty N. Thesky

Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food. ~ Raymond Chandler

I always try to suit my clothes to my company. It is the only way to be inconspicuous. ~ John Buchan

You look beautiful, ma'am," Ernestine said, delighted with the results of her work. She had drawn Phoebe's hair up into a coil of neatly pinned rolls and curls, winding a velvet ribbon around the base. A few loose curls had been allowed to dangle down the back of her head, which felt a bit strange: she wasn't accustomed to leaving any loose pieces in her usual hairstyles. Ernestine had finished the arrangement by pinning a small, fresh pink rose on the right side of the coil.
The new coiffure was very flattering, but the formal gown had turned out to be far less inconspicuous than Phoebe had expected. It was the pale beige of unbleached linen or natural wool, but the silk had been infused with exceptionally fine metallic threads of gold and silver, giving the fabric a pearly luster. A garland of peonies, roses, and delicate green silk leaves trimmed the deeply scooped neckline, while another flower garland caught up the gossamer-thin silk and tulle layers of the skirts at one side. ~ Lisa Kleypas

House of Krahr!" the vampire with the banner barked quietly.
"Krahr," the other four vampires exhaled and glared at me.
Usually they roared their house name at the top of their lungs, trying to intimidate ... Oh. They were trying to be inconspicuous. I bit my lip to keep from laughing. I'd never had an attempt at intimidation whispered at me before.
"My lord, why are you wearing trench coats?"
"We must blend in," he said. "This is a covert operation."
Don't laugh, don't laugh, don't laugh ... "It's very hot," I said. "Trench coats are a cold-weather garment. ~ Ilona Andrews

But blasting the drummer into the river, though it would have been easy at this range, was not a good way to be inconspicuous. ~ Neal Stephenson

To love you fully is to love you in every way possible, even in the smallest, most inconspicuous ways that will eventually all lead back to you. ~ Ninya Tippett

One thought after another. Thoughts and thoughts, and so many of them. Soon, my brain transformed into a fluster of inconspicuous vague thoughts. Contradictory, retaliatory, intimidating, alluring, threatening. ~ Mariyam Hasnain

There's a new kind of Giving-
I remember when Philanthropy was inconspicuous and anonymous.
Now it has turned in to " Look at me, I just saved the world" kind of show. ~ Charmaine J. Forde

Speaking is known as the articulated vocalization of thought by means of the organs of speech. But speaking is at the same time also listening. It is the custom to put speaking and listening in opposition: one man speaks, the other listens. But listening accompanies and surrounds not only speaking such as takes place in conversation. The simultaneousness of speaking and listening has a larger meaning. Speaking is of itself a listening. Speaking is listening to the language which we speak. Thus, it is a listening not while but before we are speaking. This listening to language also comes before all other kinds of listening that we know, in a most inconspicuous manner. We do not merely speak the language - we speak by way of it. We can do so solely because we always have already listened to the language. What do we hear there? We hear language speaking. ~ Martin Heidegger

When we made 'Primary,' it was just one camera. We were trying to make ourselves inconspicuous. ~ Robert Drew

Jean Kurek looked a bit like a field mouse herself, with her close-cut gray hair, in her shapeless gray dress - no zippers, no buttons. Stroke clothes. Her appearance was no more or less distinguished than it had been all her sixty-eight years, the most likely description of her a string of negatives. Not really tall or short, you wouldn't say she's heavy but she isn't particularly thin, not ugly, not at all, but not pretty either, her hair is that color that isn't blond or brown. Arguably, her most striking feature was the absence of any striking feature - though her hair had finally claimed a color, gray. She'd certainly never been considered beautiful, not by anyone other than Cliff, who had been adamant on the point for over forty years; but if she'd ever yearned for greater consensus, that yearning had been tempered by her knowledge of how she would loathe the attention it would bring. Jean had spent a lifetime trying to be inconspicuous, appreciating that nature had given her a head start. ~ Robin Black

The best way to befriend His Illegitimate Highness Prince Severin, Elle decided based on his personality and her observations, was to be as inconspicuous as possible as she steadily invaded his life. ~ K.M. Shea

The longer I live, the more necessary it seems to me to endure, to copy the whole dictation of existence to the end, for it might be that only the last sentence contains that small, perhaps inconspicuous word through which all laboriously learned and not understood orients itself toward glorious sense. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Think of it: the lowest common denominator in being digital is not your operating system, modem, or model of computer. It's a tiny piece of plastic, designed decades ago by Bell Labs' Charles Krumreich, Edwin Hardesty, and company, who thought they were making an inconspicuous plug for a few telephone handsets. Not in their wildest dreams was Registered Jack 11 - a modular connector more commonly known as the RJ-11 - meant to be plugged and unplugged so many times, by so many people, for so many reasons, all over the world. ~ Nicholas Negroponte

I dream that I'm beautiful. Not exactly beautiful, but inconspicuous. That's what it means to be beautiful, to be like everyone else. My head feels light. My eyes are on the front of my face. I have a nose, rather than nostrils. I have human skin, thin human skin. I walk down the street and no one notices me. Now that's happiness - no one noticing me. It's a happy dream. ~ Georgi Gospodinov

The unassuming inconspicuous halfway time between tomorrow and today, those slow frozen hours in-between, they're something of a comfort to the drunk rolling home. ~ Jonny Glynn

I drove out. There were a half-dozen cars there. A house man let me in. Brell came hurrying to me to pump my hand. He was a trim-bodied man in his late forties, dark and handsome in a slightly vulpine way, and I suspected he wore a very expensive and inconspicuous hair piece. He looked the type to go bald early. He had a resonant voice and a slightly theatrical presence. He wore tailored twill ranch pants and a crisp white shirt with blue piping. ~ John D. MacDonald

CLEA!" she screamed, and threw herself into my arms. It wasn't exactly inconspicuous, but I didn't care. I hugged her fiercely in return. She pulled away and saw Sage, and her eyes went completely round.
"Is this the trouble you're in?" she asked, looking him up and down. "I so approve."
"Rayna, this is Sage. Sage, Rayna."
"Pleased to meet you," Sage said, offering his hand.
"The pleasure is all mine," Rayna purred. "Unless, of course, it's all Clea's, which is even better."
Sage smiled and might have even blushed a bit, which was highly entertaining.
Before leading us to the car, Rayna insisted I take her heavy winter coat. It was thirty-four degrees outside, and I was still wearing my little black sundress. Of course, Rayna herself was wearing a lacy push-up camisole. She took Sage's arm "to keep her steady on the ice," though I think her main goal was to see if his arm was as muscular as it looked. By the openmouthed gape she shot me after her first squeeze, it was.
"They'd make a cute couple," Ben said, nodding to Sage and Rayna. "Don't you think?"
I settled for a noncommittal "Hmm."
In the car, I slipped into the front seat beside Rayna. With only her eyes, she asked me if Sage was mine. With a scrunch of my nose and a shrug, I explained it was complicated. She nodded-she understood-then gave an eye roll that clearly said I was insane if I did anything but jump at the chance to be with him. The whole conversation took about a ~ Hilary Duff

You want some more?" Christa asked, her right eye drooping like an old lady's pantyhose. It was a sign that Christa was drunk. She said it was a form of lazy eye; I just thought it was hysterical and laughed although I tried to hide it with an inconspicuous cough. ~ H.P. Mallory

There are two modes of transport in Los Angeles: car and ambulance. Visitors who wish to remain inconspicuous are advised to choose the latter ~ Fran Lebowitz

The longer i live, the more urgent it seems to me to endure and transcribe the whole dictation of existence up to its end, for it might just be the case that only the very last sentence contains that small and possibly inconspicuous word through which everything we had struggled to learn and everything we had failed to understand will be transformed into magnificent sense. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

It was perhaps even more of a remarkable phenomenon for being so inconspicuous, so entirely understated. Nothing else had moved backwards, only time. There had been no Charlie Chaplin moments. No pile of broken dishes had reassembled themselves in a stack. No steps had been retraced, no events had repeated themselves, and no stretch of road had been the same. The sun had stayed still or had swung back and forth, and time had travelled backwards as though in a capsule apart from the rest of the world, while every earthly action it encompassed had unfolded with unstoppable forward momentum. ~ Panayotis Cacoyannis

Alice haunted the mossy edge of the woods, lingering in patches of shade. She was waiting to hear his Austin-Healey throttle back when he careened down the utility road separating the state park from the cabins rimming the lake, but only the whistled conversation of buntings echoed in the branches above. The vibrant blue males darted deeper into the trees when she blew her own 'sweet-sweet chew-chew sweet-sweet' up to theirs. Pine seedlings brushed against her pants as she pushed through the understory, their green heads vivid beneath the canopy. She had dressed to fade into the forest; her hair was bundled up under a long-billed cap, her clothes drab and inconspicuous. When at last she heard his car, she crouched behind a clump of birch and made herself as small as possible, settling into a shallow depression of ferns and leaf litter. ~ Tracy Guzeman

I'd near forgotten what it felt like to be a girl in Miraji. I was inconspicuous, but not the same way I'd been as a boy. Not because I was the same as everyone else. Because I didn't matter. Nobody in Miraji had ever thought enough of a girl to imagine I might be a spy. ~ Alwyn Hamilton

His nickname through all the wards was ' Little Friend of all the World'; and very often, being lithe and inconspicuous, he executed commissions by night on the crowded housetops for sleek and shiny young men of fashion. It was intrigue, of course. ~ Rudyard Kipling

Think of the majesty of that moment in this dying world's history, when Jesus Christ declared that to the Christian death was only a sleep. Outside of that small dwelling in Capernaum, a great race of men rushed and toiled as they harassed continents and seas; mighty events marshaled themselves into annals and pageants. What was inside? In one inconspicuous chamber of a now forgotten house, man's Redeemer, unobserved, martyred man's final enemy. There Immanuel subdued death forever. ~ Charles Seymour Robinson

Many children ... delight in the small and inconspicuous. ~ Rachel Carson

Quite often, when an idea that could be helpful presents itself, we do not appreciate it, for it is so inconspicuous. The expert has, perhaps, no more ideas than the inexperienced, but appreciates more what he has and uses it better. ~ George Polya

Ushikawa's appearance made him stand out. He did not have the sort of looks suited for stakeouts or tailing people. As much as he might try to lose himself in a crowd, he was inconspicuous as a centipede in a cup of yogurt ~ Haruki Murakami

I'm always getting forgotten," said the grizzled doctor sadly. "I must have a very inconspicuous personality. ~ Agatha Christie

What's so funny?" I asked, horrified, trying to think of an inconspicuous way to check my breath.
"Of everything you've done, this is by far the most entertaining!" Maxon bent over, hitting his knee as he laughed.
"Excuse me?"
He kissed me hard on my forehead. "I always wondered what it would be like to see you try." He started laughing again. "I'm sorry; I have to go." Even the way he stood held a sense of amusement. "I'll see you in the morning."
And then he left. He just left! ~ Kiera Cass

He was one of those people who feel so compelled to fulfill duties that they go plunging into great collapsing edifices constructed entirely of disagreeable duties simply out of the fear that some secret, inconspicuous duty might somehow elude them. ~ Robert Walser

All these stupid old people. Had every last one of them met, heard of, gossiped about, or smelled her mom in the distance? Way to be inconspicuous. Thanks a lot, Mom. ~ Thea Harrison

When we see an indistinct flower rise to full bloom through an inconspicuous split in the rock, this inspires hope, faith, and highlights the strength of the gentle flower over the seemingly mighty rock. Suddenly we view the impossible as possible again. Your challenges and tough times may appear as the rigid, prominent and oppressive rocks that force you down, but the splendour of the rose is born through the power of inner wisdom, natural law, and tenacity over tribulation as she ascends toward glory. Even the most beautiful roses lay dormant during winter; life's darkness is simply a shadow that we can seek our light through. ~ Christine Evangelou

The inconspicuous nine-vehicle motorcade rolled toward Manhattan with motorcycle sirens blaring and lights flashing, attracting no attention at all. ~ Salman Rushdie

[M]aking a show was better cover than trying to stay inconspicuous; Western capitalism in particular allowed the rich just about the right amount of behavioural leeway to account for the oddities our alienness might produce. ~ Iain M. Banks

The future is like the daytime moon, a diffident but faithful companion, so elegant as to be almost invisible, an inconspicuous marvel. ~ Robert Grudin