Quotes About Attention

from chapter 29, "Write In a Book What You See") "heuristic writing - writing to explore and discover what I didn't know. Writing as a way of entering into language and letting language enter me, words connecting with words and creating what had previously been inarticulate or unnoticed or hidden. Writing as a way of paying attention. Writing as an act of prayer.

Signs of the Times. It is more important to be seen than to exist.

He thinks I don't pay attention. He has been talking and I have been silently naming the scents of everything we are crushing under our feet as we walk.

Slight not what's near through aiming atwhat's far.

Slight not what's near, while aiming at what's far.

The average housewife goes to the restaurant to relax and enjoy the food. But when Eva walks in, she becomes the center of attention.

I love photo sessions. I'm alone, I'm the queen, everyone's taking care of me.

Observing what is around us and registering errant impressions is a state not so much of passive inaction as of alert receptivity. Allowing ourselves to notice, to be open to our surroundings, is a way of awakening our curiosity in the world outside ourselves. The

Our contemporary forms of reading threaten to reduce that amplification. Aside from the fact that overusing digital technologies eventually makes us less mentally agile and more forgetful (as research increasingly shows), the kind of segmented, bite-sized reading we do on the internet fragments and constricts the 'space to think', instead of expanding it; in a sense, it reduces or even rubbishes our mental experience. Our minds

In the long term, the fragmentation of attention, a breaking up of focus and mental continuity, can disrupt neural connections in the brain and eventually lead to a literally 'shallower' neurological structure. It makes us – on the physiological level of the brain, as well as of the mind – less capable of concentration and continuous thought.

Anne Frank was a very lively girl and always wanted to draw a lot of people around her and wanted to be the centre of attention.

I feel like not all press is good press. Sometimes personal things can be released, and... that's not good press.

Thousands of books are published every year in India, and it's becoming more difficult to stand out and get people to buy the books. The only way to get people notice the book is to create a buzz much before it's released.

When I released 'Songs From My Bedroom'... that's the one that people started actually listening to.

Just the fact that that song was 'Just a Girl,' people are going to focus on Gwen. They're going to focus on Gwen because she is the lead singer; because the first single that we released was 'Just a Girl,' and it is very autobiographical; and because she is who she is. And she is the kind of person that people like to focus on.

When you look at all this massive data that comes in from our senses, and it all has to come in through this central point, it's really interesting that we can identify the filter that our mind is using to select what it thinks is relevant and what it's going to forget.

People can forget about you so quickly and that's not what I want. I want to keep people talking because at the end of the day that's what is going to get you paid. People have to want to care to watch you fight and you have to be relevant.

It's definitely tough seeing your city be devastated. People always give it the most attention when it's actually happening, but then they're not around for all of the relief and all of the rebuilding.

Some individuals relish the fact that they are not drawing attention and can quietly go about their game while others want to show off.

I am a reluctant celebrity, in some ways.

One mistake and all this attention may just disappear one fine day. So I prefer to remain grounded.

It's important in any project to remain focused.

Everybody agrees that the brain is a remarkable machine. It's capable of generating an enormous number of phenomena, some of them very obvious and some of them less obvious. But I think that in the end there are going to be some very basic explanations for many things: emotions, awareness, consciousness, attention, perception, recognition.

Despite the centrality of communication to politics it is remarkable how little attention Insiders pay to what works - never mind the question 'what could work much better?'