Quotes About Distraction

One principle reason why men are so often useless is that they ... divide and shift their attention among a multitude of objects and pursuits.

Went in at the one ear and out at the other.

For Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do.

I think, most of the time, fame is just an inconvenience that needs to be negotiated around to get done what you're actually trying to do.

How absurd that our students tuck their cell phones, BlackBerrys, iPads, and iPods into their backpacks when they enter a classroom and pull out a tattered textbook.

'Johnny Tremain,' Paul Revere's Ride, today's Tea Partiers - you have to tune all that out to get at the real story.

It drives my wife crazy because I can tune out anything. Whatever it is I'm focused on, I won't hear anything, I'm just focused on what I need to get done. It becomes a problem sometimes. I've been that way from as early as I can remember.

It's all discipline and schedule for me. I mean, it's very easy to get distracted by the real world and things that intrude constantly, and it takes dedication to live totally in your head and be tuned out.

I don't know why men are so fascinated with television and I think it has something to do with - if I may judge from my own father, who used to sit and stare at the TV while my mother was speaking to him - I think that's a man's way of tuning out.

I didn't play the game right because I saw a reward at the end of the tunnel.

There's a lot of fuss that comes with playing with Tiger, big crowds, noise and such. You either let it distract you, or you tunnel up and let it energize you. He's a great playing competitor. He recognizes good golf and he's very complimentary when good golf is played, so he's cool to be around.

The great ones have the ability to focus and tune everything else out and see more than the others. Average quarterbacks have tunnel vision. They see what's in front of them. The better you get, the more that tunnel expands, and the more guys on the field you see.

Exactly when people are in turmoil is the time that the entertainment business has always been at its best. Because people don't want to be reminded every day that they are under siege, or that they're not having a great time of life.

Turn off your email; turn off your phone; disconnect from the Internet; figure out a way to set limits so you can concentrate when you need to, and disengage when you need to. Technology is a good servant but a bad master.

When you go to the Sistine Chapel with Sophia Loren, it can be quite some time before your thoughts turn to the ceiling.

If I feel in need of sleep, I just open a book or turn on the television. Both are better than any sleeping pill.

After 'Memory Keeper's Daughter,' it took me a few months to shut out the world. I really had to turn off the Internet and sort of cloister myself away from the world again and sink into that psychic space to write again.

We use work to numb out. We can't turn off our machines because we're afraid we're going to miss something.

I was sad and in a dark place, and I turned to a hobby to sort of take me out of that.

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation.

My entire schedule gets turned around for 'The Bachelor' and 'Bachelor in Paradise.'

The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring.

I think the discipline comes with turning that cellphone and Blackberry off and unplugging completely. You do that and you go through some withdrawals in the beginning. You start thinking, 'Oh, do I need to do this? Do I need to do that?' You forget that we were doing just fine with the payphone.

It's a funny thing: people often ask how I discipline myself to write. I can't begin to understand the question. For me, the discipline is turning off the computer and leaving my desk to do something else.