Quotes About Attention

Newspapers are even worse for me than ice cream; headlines, and the big issues that generate the headlines, are pure fat.

Jenny Fields discovered that you got more respect from shocking other people than you got from trying to live your own life with a little privacy.

Among these contemptuous women, poor Germaine had the disadvantage of being young--and almost pretty, in a shy, mousy way. She possessed the nonspecific clumsiness of someone who makes such a constant effort to be inconspicuous that she is creatively awkward--without meaning to, Germaine hoarded attention to herself; her almost electric nervousness disturbed the atmosphere surrounding her.

THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN GET AMERICANS TO NOTICE ANYTHING IS TO TAX THEM OR DRAFT THEM OR KILL THEM," Owen said.

God creates us out of love, but we don't want God, or we don't believe in Him, or we pay very poor attention to Him. Nevertheless, God continues to love us—at least, He continues to try to get our attention. Pastor Merrill made religion seem reasonable. And the trick of having faith, he said, was that it was necessary to believe in God without any great or even remotely reassuring evidence that we don't inhabit a godless universe.

THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN GET AMERICANS TO NOTICE ANYTHING IS TO TAX THEM OR DRAFT THEM OR KILL THEM," Owen said. He said that once—when Hester proposed abolishing the draft. "IF YOU ABOLISH THE DRAFT," said Owen Meany, "MOST AMERICANS WILL SIMPLY STOP CARING ABOUT WHAT WE'RE DOING IN OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING TO BE AN ENGLISH MAJOR, YOU DON'T NEED ANY SPECIAL TALENT, YOU JUST HAVE TO PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT SOMEONE WANTS YOU TO SEE—TO WHAT MAKES SOMEONE ANGRIEST, OR THE MOST EXCITED IN SOME OTHER WAY. IT'S SO EASY; I THINK THAT'S WHY THERE ARE SO MANY ENGLISH MAJORS

um auditório já cansado de fazer ecoar discursos que ninguém ouvia.

Among the many objects to which a wise and free people find it necessary to direct their attention, that of providing for their safety seems to be the first.

Love is like a precious plant. You can't just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it's going to get on by itself. You've got to keep on watering it. You've got to really look after it and nurture it.

And you know what genius is, Mose? It's endless attention to detail.

Yet of this massive flow of information no more than about 40 bits per second actually reaches consciousness. We are, in other words, conscious of only a trivial slice of all the information coming into the brain for processing.

The acute attention that ravens pay to our subtle signals underscores the degree to which they can draw conclusions from our body language. They perceive our intentions even though we may not be consciously aware of them.

Another mantra, which I still write in chalk on the blackboard, is "A Thousand Details Add Up to One Impression." It's actually a quote from Cary Grant.

The lead—like the title—should be a flashlight that shines down into the story. A lead is a promise. It promises that the piece of writing is going to be like this. If it is not going to be so, don't use the lead.

My eye is educated to discover anything on the ground, as chestnuts, etc. It is probably wholesomer to look at the ground much than at the heavens.

The education of the common people requires, perhaps, in a civilized and commercial society, the attention of the public more than that of people of some rank and fortune.

A kindergarten teacher is a woman who knows how to make little things count.

So your emotional state really has a lot to do with what you're thinking about and what you're paying attention to.

Had I not been told to look, I would have quite, ignorant of what was really there, because I had 'made plans' and was wearing visual and emotional blinders that limited my perceptions and my vision.

As a writer, I never paid much attention to the length of titles. I've just wanted them to communicate the emotional overtones of the content of a record or song that they are describing

The present is always invisible because its environmental. No environment is perceptible, simply because it saturates the whole field of attention.

We got everyone's attention, but we didn't solve any environmental problems.

Civilization's shortening attention span is mismatched with the pace of environmental problems.