Quotes About Attention

Look, what I want is to be fully present in my life - to be really where you are, contemporary with yourself in your life, giving full attention to the world, which includes you. You are not the world, the world is not identical to you, but you're in it and paying attention to it. That's what a writer does - a writer pays attention to the world.

Hay belleza o cuando menos interés en todo, si se ve con un ojo suficientemente perspicaz.

People can turn off not just because a steady diet of images of violence has made them indifferent but because they are afraid.

An image is drained of its force by the way it is used, where and how often it is seen.

I'm often asked if there is something I think writers ought to do, and recently in an interview I heard myself say: "Several things. Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay attention to the world." Needless to say, no sooner had these perky phrases fallen out of my mouth than I thought of some more recipes for writer's virtue. For instance: "Be serious." By which I meant: Never be cynical. And which doesn't preclude being funny.

In one of its aspects, art is a technique for focusing attention, for teaching skills of attention. The history of the arts is tantamount to the discovery & formulation of a repertory of objects on which to lavish attention. (Oscar Wilde pointed out that people didn't see fogs before certain nineteenth-century poets & painters taught them how to; & surely, no one saw as much of the variety & subtlety of the human face before the era of the movies.)

Do stuff, be clenched, curious, not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention, it's all about paying attention. Attention is vitality, it connects you with others. It makes you eager, stay eager.

Now he knew . . . that there was nothing so vital as paying attention, and perfecting the humble offices of love.

She kept sneaking looks at him. He had strong, chiseled features, his jaw softened by a day or two's growth of beard. And those shoulders. She'd always been a sucker for a guy's strong shoulders. Big square hands that looked as if they did harder work than writing biographies. No wedding band. At thirty, Isabel couldn't help noticing a detail like that.

she learned early on that looking pretty wasn't always an advantage. Sometimes it attracted the wrong kind of attention.

But I was too many things, and wanted too many things, and could never decide which ones might (if I would pay them the proper attention) be most important.

Oh," said the Duke of Wellington, not much interested, "they are still complaining about that, are they?

The "cookie" marked the beginning of this shift. Ultimately it would do more to shape advertising—and social attention—on the Web than any other invention apart from the browser itself.

The wheel that squeaks the loudestIs the one that gets the grease.

Mindfulness is essential to frame control. It's crucial to just pay attention to your surroundings, thoughts, feelings, and responses to the situation or encounter in which you find yourself."

The learning principle is to plunge into the detailed mystery of the micro in order to understand what makes the macro tick. Our obstacle is that we live in an attention-deficit culture.

Upon discovering what Fred had done, his mother grabbed him and stripped his clothes off. She stuck his butt out the window and yelled at the top of her voice, "Everyone in the neighborhood come quickly and see Freddie's bare ass!" That would be the first of many times during Fred Levin's life that he would bare his backside for the world to see.

I would really like that, Betsy, to cheer and jeer and hoot and root alongside a band of brothers. I would love that. But do you have any idea how much attention you have to pay to a Red Sox game? Even a regular-season Red Sox game?

Our lives are the sum of our memories. How much are we willing to lose from our already short lives by … not paying attention?

If you want to live a memorable life, you have to be the kind of person who remembers to remember.

Patience is important not only in waiting for the right time to start a relationship, but also in allowing it to unfold at a healthy pace. Impatience rushes everything. It urges us to skip the time and attention a healthy friendship requires and to jump straight into emotional and physical intimacy.

The most romantic things a man can do for a woman are the little things that let her know that she's on his mind and in his heart.

It is difficult to walk, talk, eat, exercise, make love, or drive an automobile while reading.

A bevy of lovely ladies was in attendance, not one among them failing to make herself pleasant to Royce. He bore it all with good humor and occasional flashes of real interest in, Joanna noted, the bolder among them. A few drifted in Alex's direction but his obvious attentiveness to her seemed to discourage them. As it had damn well better.