Unnoticed Quotes

Sometimes life-changing moments slip by unnoticed, their significance only becoming apparent in the light of subsequent events. ~ Alex George

Our childhood had passed over into history overnight. The transition was unnoticed by anyone but ourselves. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

To ward off alienation and gloom, it is only necessary to remember the unremembered heroes of the past, and to look around us for the unnoticed heroes of the present. ~ Howard Zinn

The stinging nettles that we must have got into are more insignificant plants, with a paler purple flower, and stalks wickedly outfitted with fine, fierce, skin-piercing and inflaming spines. Those would be present too, unnoticed, in all the flourishing of the waste meadow. ~ Alice Munro

The scenes of our life are like pictures in rough mosaic, which have no effect at close quarters, but must be looked at from a distance in order to discern their beauty. So that to obtain something we have desired is to find out that it is worthless; we are always living in expectation of better things, while, at the same time, we often repent and long for things that belong to the past. We accept the present as something that is only temporary, and regard it only as a means to accomplish our aim. So that most people will find if they look back when their life is at an end, that they have lived their lifelong ad interim, and they will be surprised to find that something they allowed to pass by unnoticed and unenjoyed was just their life - that is to say, it was the very thing in the expectation of which they lived. And so it may be said of man in general that, befooled by hope, he dances into the arms of death. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

The world, moment by ordinary or agonizing moment, lies chock-full with its own clarifications and rewards. That such rewards most often go unnoticed keeps the artist in business. ~ Robert Wrigley

If a scientist sidesteps their scientific peers, and chooses to take an apparently changeable, frightening and technical scientific case directly to the public, then that is a deliberate decision, and one that can't realistically go unnoticed. ~ Ben Goldacre

There are at the present time two great nations in the world, which started from different points, but seem to tend towards the same end. I allude to the Russians and the Americans. Both of them have grown up unnoticed; and whilst the attention of mankind was directed elsewhere, they have suddenly placed themselves in the front rank among the nations, and the world learned their existence and their greatness at almost the same time.

All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural limits, and they have only to maintain their power; but these are still in the act of growth. All the others have stopped, or continue to advance with extreme difficulty; these alone are proceeding with ease and celerity along a path to which no limit can be perceived. The American struggles against the obstacles which nature opposes to him; the adversaries of the Russian are men. The former combats the wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilization with all its arms. The conquests of the American are therefore gained with the ploughshare; those of the Russian by the sword. The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his ends, and gives free scope to the unguided strength and common sense of the people; the Russian centres all the authority of society in a single arm. The principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude. Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked out by the ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

As for the danger of alienating people with good intentions - well, one of the things that I learned from RaceFail (and also from general experience) was that people with good intentions are the ones to fear most. The overt racists are easy to deal with. You can spot them coming a mile away. But the well-intentioned people are scarier. They might not intend harm, but in most cases they haven't thought about all the racist (and other "-ist") messages they've absorbed from society. They haven't done the basic groundwork necessary to purge themselves of that passively-absorbed "-ism". So they say the most incredibly hurtful, self-absorbed, and utterly useless things, then compound the problem by getting upset when they're called on it. I liken these people to sleeper agents - they seem OK at first, but then they suddenly "activate" and stab you in the back, and then they come out of their fugue and freak because there's blood on their hands and they don't know how it got there and they refuse to accept that they're the ones who put it there, OMG, OMG. Meanwhile, you're on the floor bleeding out, unnoticed because of their histrionics.

The rage of RaceFail made many of these well-intentioned sleeper agents wake up. So while yes, I think the anger risked alienating some of them, I'm fine with that. They were always dangerous; I haven't lost anything by their alienation. The ones who wake up are a gain (or they will be, once they shift from "not causing harm" anymore ~ N.K. Jemisin

Religion is based on the insistence that over and above all is a purpose and a guiding hand that is beneficent and kind, and would not leave a hair unnumbered or let a sparrow fall unnoticed to the ground. Those who cherish such hallucinations forget that the all-loving power is inflicting tuberculosis, cancer, famine, and pestilence on the trusting, simple sons of men. ~ Clarence Darrow

At some unnoticed moment, I began to understand that a life is written in indelible ink. What I've chosen, what's happened unchosen, can't be unmade or redone. Poetry, though, is a door that only continues to open. Even the unchangeable past changes inside a poem. Not the facts, but the feeling, the comprehension. ~ Jane Hirshfield

I am loathe to let thougths escape unnoticed, unexamined and unused. ~ Mark Amtower

And in some of the houses, people were getting old and sick and were dying, leaving others to grieve. It was happening all the time, unnoticed, and it was the thing that really mattered. What really mattered in life, what gave it weight, was death. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

This is a confusing and uncertain period, when a thousand wise words can go completely unnoticed, and one thoughtless word can provoke an utterly nonsensical furor. ~ Vaclav Havel

It was like skimming through a novel without fully engaging with the story until a well-turned phrase or powerful bit of imagery snagged her attention, hinting at depths previously unnoticed. ~ Karen Witemeyer

She was beautiful, in the quiet way that lonely, unnoticed people are beautiful to those who notice them. ~ Jedediah Berry

You democratize heroism. Everybody is a hero, and simply for doing (and often not well at that) the ordinary tasks of living as a half-decent person. Does your mother fix you breakfast? She is a hero. Does your father visit you every weekend without fail? A hero. Does your teacher mark your papers faithfully when you make a mistake? Unexampled heroism, that. If everyone is a hero, then no one is a hero; and genuine heroes will go unnoticed in all the mindless self-congratulation. ~ Anthony Esolen

For the first time, Araushnee realized how truly alone she was on the path she had chosen. With this realization came a moment's regret. But the emotion did not linger, and when it passed, something else went with it - a part of Araushnee's heart that had slowly been dying, unnoticed and unmourned. The slender thread of magic that connected her to the other gods of the Seldarine and to their elven children had finally snapped. Whatever else Araushnee had become, she was no longer truly elven. ~ Anonymous

Of course the dust is building up unseen, but you learn to repress this for as long as it goes unnoticed by guests. And then one day someone moves a piece of furniture without your say-so, and everything comes into plain view. Dirt and scratch marks. Permanent damage to the parquet floor. By then it's too late. ~ Fredrik Backman

Nothing in life can ever be entirely divorced from myriad other incidents; and it is remarkable, though no doubt logical, that action, built up from innumerable causes, each in itself allusive and unnoticed more often than not, is almost always provided with an apparently ideal moment for its final expression. So true is this that what has gone before is often, to all intents and purposes, swallowed up by the aptness of the climax, opportunity appearing, at least on the surface, to be the sole cause of fulfilment. ~ Anthony Powell

With a rush of feeling he felt that this must be happiness. As soon as the thought came to him, he fought it back, blaming the whiskey. The very idea was as dangerous as presumptive speech: happiness could not be sought or worried into being, or even fully grasped; it should be allowed its own slow pace so that it passes unnoticed, if it ever comes at all. ~ John McGahern

You made an offering of a battle of gods and demons," Joshua said. "That kind of offer does not go unnoticed. You awoke the souls of your kinsmen inside the mortals they have become. ~ Eric Nierstedt

She was one of those women who are usually referred to in the past tense, of whom one says: 'She had a certain freshness and bloom about her,' and whose freshness and bloom passed unnoticed even when she still had them. ~ Gabriel Chevallier

Where do you go if you don't belong anywhere? If I wanted to run away then why come to the city? Because this is the place to hide. This is the place to be invisible. Anyone can be no one here, and I am someone that wants to be no one. ~ Steven Wilson

Something changes in the brain when you know surviving the next few minutes is determined solely by your ability to go unnoticed. ~ RaeLynn Fry

How cold and foreign this city seemed, that even death could pass unnoticed. ~ Kristen Simmons

I ask the citizens of this Republic whether such a state of things is to be suffered to pass unnoticed, and the hearts of widows, orphans, and patriots to be broken, and their wrongs left without redress? No! I invoke the genius of our Constitution. I appeal to the patriotism of Americans to stop this unlawful and unholy procedure; and pray that God may defend this nation from the dreadful effects of such outrages. ~ Joseph Smith Jr.

No, I am not apologizing. He needs to apologize to me. He called me names all day and pushed me. It is funny how it went unnoticed, but you want to punish me, the good guy. When I defend myself, then you want to look? ~ Charlena E. Jackson

Louis-Cesare and Ray were in trouble.
I could tell because I could see them, not clearly, but in fits and starts, little glimmers like a couple of ghosts, if ghosts made "oh shit" faces on the one hand agitated French gestures on the other. And that sort of shit wasn't going to go unnoticed for long.
Aaaaand it didn't. ~ Karen Chance

You will know your job is done well when it goes unnoticed, that you have succeeded when you are unnoticed. ~ Kate Morton

In life we meet many people. some people remain in touch and some contacts are dumped in recycle bin of mind. we expect somethings from people in our life but sometimes those expectations remain unnoticed and incomplete. getting depressed in such condition is natural but if we try we can minimize this amount off hearty hurt. ~ Auliq Ice

Knowledge of the truth I may perhaps have attained to; happiness certainly not. What shall I do? Accomplish something in the world, men tell me. Shall I then publish my grief to the world, contribute one more proof for the wretchedness and misery of existence, perhaps discover a new flaw in human life, hitherto unnoticed? I might then reap the rare reward of becoming famous, like the man who discovered the spots on Jupiter. I prefer, however, to keep silent. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Every day in the human body, some 10 billion cells die and are replaced by new cells. The cells that die do not meet a violent unpremeditated end, but are removed silently and unnoticed by apoptosis, all evidence of their demise eaten by neighbouring cells. This means that apoptosis balances cell division ~ Nick Lane

How to love is the real question. We all know to love and to keep loving more, but man's confusion comes from the differing opinions on how to love. The Church will always be accused of not loving enough by human standards - which should be its motivation to love more - however that is, in many cases, because its focus is and should also be to love on levels of eternal significance. This is the level of love that will inevitably go unnoticed by those who do not believe in eternity. ~ Criss Jami

Let's begin with a quotation from mindfulness expert and teacher Bhante Henepola Gunaratana. It beautifully encapsulates what deceptive brain messages are, what they do to you, and how they keep you from following the path of your true self: We see life through a screen of thoughts and concepts, and we mistake those [thoughts] for reality. We get so caught up in this endless thought-stream that reality flows by unnoticed. We spend our time engrossed in activity, caught up in an eternal pursuit of pleasure and gratification and eternal flight from pain and unpleasantness. We spend all our energies trying to make ourselves feel better, trying to bury our fears, endlessly seeking security.16 To phrase it another way: We spend a considerable amount of our time engrossed in following deceptive brain messages until we begin to see them for what they are and value our true emotions and needs. ~ Jeffrey M. Schwartz

Acceptance is supposed to be a good thing - Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Also compromise, as every couples therapist will tell you. But the cost was high - the damping of expectation, the dwindling of spirit, the resignation that comes to replace enthusiasm, the cynicism that supplants hope. The mouldering that goes unnoticed and unchecked. ~ A.S.A Harrison

Fiction, with its preference for what is small and might elsewhere seem irrelevant; its facility for smuggling us into another skin and allowing us to live a new life there; its painstaking devotion to what without it might go unnoticed and unseen; its respect for contingency, and the unlikely and odd; its willingness to expose itself to moments of low, almost animal being and make them nobly illuminating, can deliver truths we might not otherwise stumble on. ~ David Malouf

The greatest gift ever given to someone could be simply including them. In the little things. Most minor things. Great things happen all the time and are left unnoticed. The sun shines, rises and sets every day. We aren't thankful enough for it. What makes us truly happy are these little yet prominently noticed things; a smile from someone you like, bare feet walk on the grass at a rainy day, the serenity of the beach, the scent of a flower or a mere acquaintance avoiding the wild plants at a pathway just because you asked. This is the definition of happiness from a simple person. ~ Jazbia S.

There are times that a work exists for the sake of getting you to the next step, as a testing ground for ideas, for recognizing parts if your process that were theretofore unnoticed or undiscovered. ~ Carrie Brownstein

We are sometimes made aware of a kindness long passed, and realize that there have been times when our friends' thoughts of us were of so pure and lofty a character that they passed over us like the winds of heaven unnoticed; when they treated us not as what we were, but as what we aspired to be. ~ Henry David Thoreau

I HAD BEEN IN Tarbean for years at this point. Three birthdays had slipped by unnoticed and I was just past fifteen. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

For a billion years the patient earth amassed documents and inscribed them with signs and pictures which lay unnoticed and unused. Today, at last, they are waking up, because man has come to rouse them. Stones have begun to speak, because an ear is there to hear them. Layers become history and, released from the enchanted sleep of eternity, life's motley, never-ending dance rises out of the black depths of the past into the light of the present. ~ Hans Cloos

Quiet, by its nature, slips away unnoticed. But once it's gone, we notice. ~ Susan Marsh

It mattered little if one was mute; people did not understand one another anyway. They collided with or charmed one another, hugged or trampled one another, but everyone knew only himself. His emotions, memory, and senses divided him from others as effectively as thick reeds screen the mainstream from the muddy bank. Like the mountain peaks around us, we looked at one another, separated by valleys, too high to stay unnoticed, too low to touch the heavens. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

No life should pass unnoticed. ~ Eleanor Cooney

Every milestone in the history of the company, even when forecast with heaps of hoopla, was ultimately played out according to some secret timeline of geologic tedium, so that it was drained of all interest and drama well before it took place and afterward went all but unnoticed. ~ Thomas Ligotti

What importance can we attach to the things of this world? Friendship? It disappears when the one who is liked comes to grief, or the one who likes becomes powerful. Love? it is deceived, fleeting, or guilty. Fame? You share it with mediocrity or crime. Fortune? Could that frivolity be counted a blessing? All that remains are those so-called happy days that flow past unnoticed in the obscurity of domestic cares, leaving man with the desire neither to lose his life nor to begin it over. ~ Francois-Rene De Chateaubriand

Tell her how much all the little things she does all year long that seem to go unnoticed really mean to you." With a $2.59 card. Mother's Day is built on that idea. ~ Shonda Rhimes

Despite our differences, we are all in this together. No act of kindness or compassion goes unnoticed. To change the world, take compassionate action within your immediate sphere of influence. To change yourself, start by being still and making time just to listen. ~ Edmund Bourne

Our God is not made of stone. His heart is the most sensitive and tender of all. No act goes unnoticed, no matter how insignificant or small. A cup of cold water is enough to put tears in the eyes of God. God celebrates our feeble expressions of gratitude. ~ Richard J. Foster

The most successful revolutions aren't those that are celebrated with parades and banners, drums and trumpets, cannons and fireworks. The really successful revolutions are those that occur quietly, unnoticed, uncommemorated. We don't celebrate the day the United States Constitution was destroyed; it didn't happen on a specific date, and most Americans still don't realize it happened at all. We don't say the Constitution has ceased to exist; we merely say that it's a 'living document.' But it amounts to the same thing. ~ Joseph Sobran

Without my Vulcan cat suit, Frankenstein wig and pointed ears, I don't get recognized. I love the fact I'm a shape shifter who can go unnoticed. ~ Jolene Blalock

INT. KAMA'S HIDEOUT - EVENING
The interior of KAMA'S hideout is pitch black. The sound of water dripping. A brief shaft of sunlight reveals TINA, sleeping lightly on the floor in her coat.
NEWT: Tina?
She wakes. A moment as NEWT and TINA stare at each other. Each has thought of the other daily for a year. With no sign of KAMA, it seems she has been rescued.
TINA (joyful, disbelieving): Newt!
TINA notices KAMA entering in the background and raising his wand. Her expression changes.
KAMA: Expelliarmus!
NEWT'S wand flies out of his hand into KAMA'S. Bars form across the door, imprisoning them.
KAMA (through the door): My apologies, Mr. Scamander! I shall return and release you when Credence is dead!
TINA: Kama, wait!
KAMA: You see, either he dies . . . or I do.
He claps a hand to his eye.
KAMA: No, no, no, no. Oh no. No, no, no.
He jerks convulsively and slides to the floor, unconscious.
NEWT: Well, that's not the best start to a rescue attempt.
TINA: This was a rescue attempt? You've just lost me my only lead.
JACOB launches for the door, trying to break it down.
NEWT (innocent): Well, how was the interrogation going before we turned up?
TINA throws him a dark look. She strides to the back of the cave.
Pickett, who, unnoticed, has hopped out of NEWT'S pocket, successfully picks the lock, and the bars swing open.
JACOB: Newt!
NEWT: Well done, Pick.
(to TINA) You need thi ~ J.K. Rowling

People would make the decisions they wished to make and some of them would hurt both themselves and those who loved them, and some would pass unnoticed, while others would bring joy. ~ Rachel Joyce

True Genuis often goes unnoticed and unappreciated. Only through the lense of time do we see genuis and how it has affected the world around us. ~ Joshua Wisenbaker

But a vague jealousy, one of those dormant jealousies that develop between brothers or sisters almost unnoticed until maturity, only to burst out when one of them marries or has a stroke of good fortune, kept them constantly on the alert in a fraternal, unaggressive hostility. They did love each other, yet they kept an eye on each other. ~ Guy De Maupassant

I'm not a social retard, but I prefer to go unnoticed. ~ Tracy Pollan

Hmm . . ." I squinted, disliking the possibility that there could be two sides to this woman. As a rule, I don't believe in hidden depths, where hidden depths were defined as admirable butpreviously unnoticed qualities. I noticed everything.

Manufactured depths? Yes.

Disguised depths? Perhaps.

But not hidden depths. ~ Penny Reid

I love you," he whispered, rubbing his
jaw against her temple. "And you love me. I can feel it when you're in my arms." He felt her stiffen slightly
and draw a shaky breath, but she either couldn't or wouldn't speak. She hadn't thrown the words back in his face, however, so Ian continued talking to her, his hand roving over her back. "I can feel it, Elizabeth, but if you don't admit it pretty soon, you're going to drive me out of my mind. I can't work. I can't think. I make decisions and then I change my mind. And," he teased, trying to lighten the mood by using the one topic sure to distract her, "that's nothing to the money I squander whenever I'm under this sort of violent stress. It wasn't just the gowns I bought, or the house on Promenade..."

Still talking to her, he tipped her chin up, glorying in the gentle passion in her eyes, overlooking the doubt in their green depths. "If you don't admit it pretty soon," he teased, "I'll spend us out of house and home." Her delicate brows drew together in blank confusion, and Ian grinned, taking her hand from his chest, the emerald betrothal ring he had bought her unnoticed in his fingers. "When I'm under stress," he emphasized, sliding the magnificent emerald onto her finger, "I buy everything in sight. It took my last ounce of control not to buy one of these in every color. ~ Judith McNaught

I looked at the back of Jessica's silky bent head and thought of those old stories where one twin is hurt and the other, miles away, feels the pain. I wondered if there had been a moment, during that giggly girls' night at Auntie Vera's, when she had made some small, unnoticed sound; if all the answers we wanted were locked away behind the strange dark gateways of her mind. ~ Tana French

He saw that people would make the decisions they wished to make, and some of them would hurt both themselves and those who loved them, and some would pass unnoticed, while others would bring joy. He ~ Rachel Joyce

As long as one egg looks pretty much like another, all the chickens like chicken, and beef beef, the substitution of quantity for quality will go unnoticed by most consumers, but it is becoming increasingly apparent to anyone with an electron microscope or a mass spectrometer that, truly, this is not the same food. ~ Michael Pollan

As Darwin pointed out in The Origin of Species (opening pages of chapter three), the 'struggle for existence' can often be described just as well as a mutual dependence. And harmless coexistence as parts of the same eco-sphere is also a very common relation. . . . Among social creatures, positive gregariousness, a liking for each other's company, is the steady, unnoticed background for the conflicts. ~ Mary Midgley

Nothing is so common as to see a political upheaval pass practically unnoticed merely because the names of the leaders and their parties remain the same. ~ Constant Lambert

It's time for us to review the circumstances under which corporations gain rights superior to that of individuals in our society. It's time for us to look at the practices of corporations and holding them accountable for violations of law which often go unnoticed because there is very little regulation. ~ Dennis Kucinich

The mathematic, then, is an art. As such it has its styles and style periods. It is not, as the layman and the philosopher (who is in this matter a layman too) imagine, substantially unalterable, but subject like every art to unnoticed changes form epoch to epoch. The development of the great arts ought never to be treated without an (assuredly not unprofitable) side-glance at contemporary mathematics. ~ Oswald Spengler

The power of discretionary disqualification by one law of Parliament, and the necessity of paying every debt of the Civil List by another law of Parliament, if suffered to pass unnoticed, must establish such a fund of rewards and terrors as will make Parliament the best appendage and support of arbitrary power that ever was invented by the wit of man. ~ Edmund Burke

At certain junctures in the course of existence, unique moments occur when everyone and everything, even the most distant stars, combine to bring about something that could not have happened before and will never happen again. Few people know how to take advantage of these critical moments, unfortunately, and they often pass unnoticed. When someone does recognize them, however, great things happen in the world. ~ Michael Ende

To those who live in the narrow circle of human interests and human feelings, there ever exists, unheeded, almost unnoticed, before their very eyes, the most humbling proofs of their own comparative insignificance in the scale of creation, which, in the midst of their admitted mastery over the earth and all it contains, it would be well for them to consider, if they would obtain just views of what they are and what they were intended to be. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Peaceful with six children Darya Alexandrova could not be...Rare indeed were the brief periods of peace...hard though it was for the mother to bear the dread of illness, the illnesses themselves, and the grief of seeing signs of evil propensities in her children--the children themselves were even now repaying her in small joys for her sufferings. Those joys were so small that they passed unnoticed, like gold in sand, and at bad moments she could see nothing but the pain, nothing but sand; but there were good moments too when she saw nothing but the joy, nothing but gold.

Now in the solitude of the country, she began to be more and more frequently aware of those joys. Often, looking at them, she would make every possible effort to persuade herself that she was mistaken, that she as a mother was partial to her children. All the same, she could not help saying to herself that she had charming children, all six of them in different ways, but a set of children such as is not often to be met with, and she was happy in them, and proud of them. ~ Leo Tolstoy

The totality of what exists, including what has existed and will exist, is infinitely small in comparison with the totality of the objects of knowledge. This fact easily goes unnoticed, probably because the lively interest in reality which is part of our nature tends to favor that exaggeration which finds the non-real a mere nothing (...) or, more precisely, which finds the non-real to be something for which science has no application or at least no application of any worth. ~ Alexius Meinong

There are so many simple things getting unnoticed in me, it makes me feel I am a robot! ~ Vikram Roy

Unnoticed, the passage has occurred; as I brood, autumn dusk dewdrops fall on my pillow. The voices of insects and the deer by the fence, as one, disturb me to tears this autumn dusk. ~ Princess Shikishi

We usually do not look into what is really there in front of us. We see life through a screen of thoughts and concepts, and we mistake those mental objects for reality. We get so caught up in this endless thought-stream that reality flows by unnoticed. We spend our time engrossed in activity, caught up in an eternal flight from pain and unpleasantness. We spend our energies trying to make ourselves feel better, trying to bury our fears. We are endlessly seeking security. Meanwhile, the world of real experience flows by untouched and untasted. ~ Henepola Gunaratana

And in a way, this was how he had come to see his death, as a series of small ones taking place over the course of his life and leading finally to the main event, which would be so anti-climatic, so undramatic (a sudden violent seizure in his long abused heart, a quick massive flooding of the brain) it would go unnoticed. It was the small deaths occurring over an entire lifetime that took the greater toll. ~ Paule Marshall

The clock's pendulum catches the firelight, and in the rattle-breathed final moments of Jacob de Zoet, amber shadows in the far corner coagulate into a woman's form.
She slips between the bigger, taller onlookers unnoticed ...
... and adjusts her headscarf, the better to hide her burn.
She places her cool palms on Jacob's fever-glazed face.
Jacob sees himself, when he was young, in her narrow eyes.
Her lips touch the place between his eyebrows.
A well-waxed paper door slides open. ~ David Mitchell

The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and to those whom he loves. This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance. Their deeds may be small, and almost always unnoticed, unmarked by history. Their names are not remembered, nor did these authentic humans expect their names to be remembered. I see their authenticity in an odd way: not in their willingness to perform great heroic deeds but in their quiet refusals. In essence, they cannot be compelled to be what they are not. ~ Philip K. Dick

Nor did it go unnoticed by the latest litter of Archimboldians, recent graduates, boys and girls, their doctorates tucked still warm under their arms, who planned, by any means necessary, to impose their particular readings of Archimboldi, like missionaries ready to instill faith in God, even if to do so meant signing a pact with the devil, for most were what you might call rationalists, not in the philosophical sense but in the pejorative literal sense, denoting people less interested in literature than in literary criticism, the one field, according to them - some of them, anyway - where revolution was still possible, and in some way they behaved not like youths but like nouveaux youths, in the sense that there are the rich and the nouveaux riches, all of them generally rational thinkers, let us repeat, although often incapable of telling their asses from their elbows, ~ Roberto Bolano

They say all roads led to the imperial city. Of course that was true - all roads linked up with other roads and would ultimately take you anyplace you wished to go. This road did in fact become the Imperial Way, though, and was busy enough that they could follow Tyrus unnoticed.
"Oh, he's noticed," Ronan said when Ashyn commented.
"But he hasn't looked back once."
"No, we haven't seen him look back. He's a prince and a warrior, Ash. He's not going to glance about like a nervous trader with a full purse. He acts as if no one would dare attack him, so they give him a wide berth. But he's fully aware of his surroundings. He knows we're here. He's jut not going to do anything about it unless we come closer. ~ Kelley Armstrong

Her eyes heated with the anger and hurt that had been held inside her
for too long. "Your trips to the village have not gone unnoticed."
A look of confusion crossed his too-handsome face. "What does my
going to the village have to do with us?"
"I know there are women
"
He swore and gripped her arm, jerked her up against his chest. "Who
put such nonsense in your head?"
She didn't say anything, her throat hot and tight from the ball of tears
constricting it.
"Finlay," he said flatly. She looked at him in surprise. " 'Tis no secret
that he despises me, but I am surprised that you listened to his venom."
"It's not too difficult to believe. You are a man."
"Aye," he said softly. "But I've not had another woman, Elizabeth."
Her heart faltered. Her eyes shot to his, not daring to believe ... He
cradled her cheek tenderly in his big hand.
"How can I when I want someone else?"
He hasn't been with a woman ... he wants me. ~ Monica McCarty

Every year hundreds of books, many of considerable merit, pass unnoticed. Each one has taken the author months to write, he may have had it in his mind for years; he has put into it something of himself which is lost forever, it is heart-rending to think how great are the chances that it will be disregarded. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

The Life of a Day

Like people or dogs, each day is unique and has its own personality quirks which can easily be seen if you look closely. but there are so few days as compared to people, not to mention dogs, that it would be surprising if a day were not a hundred times more interesting than most people. But usually they just pass, mostly unnoticed, unless they are wildly nice, like autumn ones full of red maple trees and hazy sunlight, or if they are grimly awful ones in a winter blizzard that kills the lost traveler and bunches of cattle. For some reason we like to see days pass, even though most of us claim we don't want to reach our last one for a long time. We examine each day before us with barely a glance and say, no, this isn't one I've been looking for, and wait in a bored sort of way for the next, when, we are convinced, our lives will start for real. Meanwhile, this day is going by perfectly well-adjusted, as some days are, with the right amounts of sunlight and shade, and a light breeze scented with a perfume made from the mixture of fallen apples, corn stubble, dry oak leaves, and the faint odor of last night's meandering skunk. ~ Tom Hennen

This is all we are at our best, he thought, tiny instances accumulating up into a greater whole. There is noting magnificent in this world, he thought, that is not born from an act so slight as to go wholly unnoticed. We must be especially attentive to see them, and to remember to perform them, he thought, yes, that is the crux: we must simply pay attention. ~ Toby Barlow

Have you noticed," she asked him, "how we live much of our lives in the past and most of the rest of it in the future? Have you noticed how often the present moment slips by quiet unnoticed? ~ Mary Balogh

Sylvia would have taken it seriously- so strong was her devotion to the innate intelligence of form. Those pretty tools like glue and pens, pasting together look-books – for Sylvia it would have been like toy making or arranging jewels. Unfortunately, Sylvia's flair for design and graphics went unnoticed by the Mademoiselle staff, who had already pigeonholed her as a "writer". ~ Elizabeth Winder

Geez, Vi, you didn't need to break your own leg to get out of going to the dance with Grady Spencer. A simple 'no' would have been just fine, I'm sure."
Apparently no one had noticed that Jay had barely let go of her hand for a second. His thumb was now tracing lazy circles around her palm, and he answered her uncle's teasing comment without looking away from Violet for even a split second. "She's not going to the dance with Grady," he announced, smiling at her mischievously, and for a moment Violet forgot how to breathe. She hoped she never got used to how a simple look from him could turn her into a blithering idiot.
"Really?" her aunt Kat asked, her eyes narrowing as she glanced from Violet to Jay, and then down at their intertwined hands. Clearly she wasn't going to let the comment pass unnoticed. "Why is that?" she asked in a voice filled with unspoken meaning.
Stephen Ambrose looked at his wife curiously, a little slow to catch on, which was sad, really, considering it was his job to seek out clues and solve mysteries.
Jay answered Kat without missing a beat. "Because she's going with me." He winked at violet, whose cheeks had flushed to a brilliant shade of scarlet. She wasn't entirely sure she was ready for this.
Violet saw her mom and Aunt Kat exchange meaningful glances.
They knew, she realized. And now her uncle did too.
Uncle Stephen gave Jay his best I'm-keeping-my-eye-on-you look, but a quick "Hmm" was the only sound he made.Kimberly Derting