Quotes About Distraction

Even natural wonders aren't what they used to be, because nothing can be experienced without commentary. In the 1950s, we worried about how TV would affect our culture. Now our entire lives are a terrible talk show that we can't turn off. It often feels like we're struggling to find ourselves and each other in a crowded, noisy room. We are plagued, around the clock, by the shouting and confusion and fake intimacy of the global community, mid-nervous breakdown.

One thing on your list to worry about. Put all your worry into that one thing. Worry about it as much as you like, as much as you need to. But only that one thing. Anytime any of the other things flits across your mind, take that concern and channel it into your one thing.

he was supposed to be reading, but it was impossible. She had done something

Everybody tells me what a timesaver the Internet is, and how they can't believe they ever got along without it. And I know what they mean, but every time I use it I wind up wondering what people did with their spare time before computers came along to suck it all up.

Video screens can offer many useful things: entertainment, information, even distraction from stress. But they can't make goofy faces, give hugs, or provide a deep sense of safety and security.

My own experiences in dealing with "Hollywood" types is that most are pathological liars, ignorant in the ways of literature and art, lacking in common sense, and incredibly arrogant. They will make empty promises, waste a writer's time, screw in moronic ways with his material, and generally distract a writer from accomplishing anything worthwhile.

It has been the sad experience of many that much of the best and the most beautiful is lost to those whose mental food consists exclusively of the sensational paper or the cheap novel, or of that frothy mass of waste material which is thrown up like scum upon the molten metal of life--novelettes, serials, and fragments of a type which neither teach the ignorant, nor strengthen the weak, nor develop the immature.

She glanced over abstractedly, still keeping company with her most recent thought.

Anyone who speaks Latin (gets egged by the populace for being a nerd) must have wondered from the start if Panem was a reference to the Roman people's reported liking for bread and circuses—for instant gratification that would distract them from the harsher realities of life.

I tend to believe that computers are drawing kids -- and adults -- away from reading purely because they provide an alternative, vast source of spare-time amusement and entertainment. I recently heard a frightening statistic: there are less than one million true readers in this country (those who read every day instead of one book per year on a beach). Terrifying.

The corrupt, self-serving prick was trying to distract you from the truth to save his career, remember?

Television is simply automated day-dreaming.

I think the most important thing is to be busy, because if you have work occupying you, you don't have time to worry about the other serious problems in life.

I haven't ever really relied on relationships with guys. They come around and it's cool, but it's never been a big thing. I guess I've just been really distracted by work.

Klaus sighed, and opened a book, and as at so many other times when the middle Baudelaire child did not want to think about his circumstances, he began to read.

It is true there are more important things than dinner, but it is difficult to keep those things in mind when you haven't had dinner.

Cualquiera que conociese a Violet se hubiera dado cuenta de que estaba pensando intensamente, porque llevaba la larga melena recogida con una cinta para que no se le metiera en los ojos. Violet tenía el don de inventar y construir extraños aparatos, y su cerebro se veía inundado a menudo con imágenes de poleas, palancas y herramientas, y ella no quería que algo tan trivial como su cabello la distrajese.

You'll soon find out that much of this job involves a lot of waiting around," the hook-handed man said. "I usually keep something around to help pass the time, like a deck of cards or a large rock.

But by immersing themselves in their favorite reading topics, they felt far away from their predicament, as if they had escaped.

Those two pilots that sped 150 miles past their Minneapolis destination have been suspended. They got suspended because they were looking at their laptops instead of flying the plane. Think about this -- everybody else on the plane has to turn off their laptops except for the people flying the plane.

The best thing about recess is that it doesn't matter if you are having trouble paying attention in class--suddenly, you are paying attention to a million things on the playground.

the more he did nothing, the less time he had to do anything.

Whatever question arose, a swarm of these drones, without having finished their buzzing on a previous theme, flew over to the new one and by their hum drowned and obscured the voices of those who were disputing honestly.

Do you see how preoccupied everyone has been? This perspective explains a lot. How many people do you know who are obsessed with their work, who are type A or have stress related diseases and who can't slow down? They can't slow down because they use their routine to distract themselves, to reduce life to only its practical considerations. And they do this to avoid recalling how uncertain they are about why they live.