Quotes About Attention

I'm one of those people who other people like but never remember. I think most of the world is probably like me. Until recently nothing about me was outstanding, and then my mother got cancer. It's a disease people like to talk about, so I'm more popular now. And when I flip through magazines, I read the breast cancer articles first, even before the numerology column.

One of them is going to tell the judge for the same reason children always tattle to the teacher. For attention and a gold star.

This one's good. 'Don't expect a man with a hard-on to be able to think. He doesn't have enough blood to run both heads.' Hmmm. He shot her a wicked grin over his shoulder. I do. Want to see?

And speaking of footwear, yours are on the wrong feet." Keller looked down at his shoes and scratched his head before tipping his head up again. "But I don't have any other feet," he finally said.

He kept his eyes on the road as he drove slowly toward the inn. Slowly, as in a-herd-of-turtles-stampeding-through-peanut-butter slowly. The guy didn't pass a single indent in the road that didn't require a nearly complete stop.

Be his friend—i.e., be there for him. Pay attention to him and show interest—e.g., ask questions. Respect him—e.g., care about the things he cares about, like his family and friends. Flirt with him—e.g., smile. Don't try to change him—i.e., accept him as he is, flaws and all.

With the way the light shone on her, she looked spotlighted, as if a painter had rendered her that way, the center of someones world.

Mort drove one of those little hybrid cars that, when not running on gasoline, was fueled by idealism. It was made out of crepe paper and duct tape and boasted a computer system that looked like it could have run the NYSE and NORAD, with enough attention left over to play tic-tac-toe. Or possibly Global Thermonuclear War.

I moved my feet in a vague shuffle, and remembered somewhere that when you walked, you moved them alternately. This improved our progress considerably.

I listened. Listening isn't hard to do. No one has practice at it, nowadays, but you can train yourself to pay attention to your senses if you work at it long enough.

The Old World was the domain of the Old School of wizardry—the "maintain secrecy and don't attract attention" way of thinking. I guess they have a point, given the Inquisition and all. I don't belong to the Old School. I have an ad in the Yellow Pages, under "Wizards." Big shocker—I'm the only one there. I have to pay the bills somehow, don't I?

little hybrid cars that, when not running on gasoline, was fueled by idealism. It was made out of crepe paper and duct tape and boasted a computer system that looked like it could have run the NYSE and NORAD, with enough attention left over to play tic-tac-toe. Or possibly Global Thermonuclear War.

kids will throw tantrums only as long as they work. Kids never seem to scream and pound the floor when they're alone in their room, but the show goes on when they have a captive audience.

Given intelligence, success in any area has always struck me as a matter of the level of attention, excluding the arts, of course, which seem to be involved in a mystery known only to their practitioners, if, indeed, they know themselves. You can read a Chekhov story, a Shakespeare sonnet, or listen to a Mozart sonata a dozen times and you'll still be left twiddling your thumbs in mute admiration.

He had an elaborate, to me, theory that even the simplest of us could raise the quality of our lives by vastly increasing our level of attention.

Of course he wasn't listening to what I said but to all of his imagined resonances of what I said.

Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel.

One megachurch pastor told me, "I only have our people for two hours per week, if I am lucky, and Fox News has them 24/7.

You only have to have two loves in your life: for God, and for the person in front of you at any particular time.

I spent my next hour reshelving, and the next thirty minutes straightening out the Mc's and Mac's. Nobody on God's earth understands the Mc/Mac principle anymore. In order to do that, you have to be willing to think about something other than your genitals for a full minute.

Whether they represent us as clowns or criminals, the main thing is that they mention us, that they concern themselves with us again and again.

Until now I had been able only to grieve, not mourn. Grief was passive. Grief happened. Mourning, the act of dealing with grief, required attention.

Details are our business as writers. Your heart leaps when you see a detail that can go somewhere

Mourning, the act of dealing with grief, required attention. Until now there had been every urgent reason to obliterate any attention that might otherwise have been paid, banish the thought, bring fresh adrenaline to bear on the crisis of the day.