Quotes About Distraction

Sadly, the only constant in my writing environment stems from some inexplicable need to listen to the news. CNN loops over and over in the background from the time I wake until the time I finally, blessedly, fall asleep.

When you wake up, instead of checking emails on your phone, or counting your retweets, pick up a pen and scratch a few sentences into a notebook.

I'm not one of those people who sits at dinner on their iPhone all night. I'm either working or I'm not. I've gone down that path where you sleep with your phone beside the bed and send an email just before you put your head down and check everything again when you wake up, and I don't like it.

I check my phone first thing when I wake up in the morning. I usually take it up with me to bed so it's on the floor next to the bed, although not actually in bed with me, because I really do not want to be the person who sleeps with their phone.

For most of us, starting off in the morning, your iPhone wakes you up, you immediately start checking emails or texts or whatever, and you're up and running until you go to bed.

For all the sophistication of a world in which most of our waking hours are spent consuming or interacting with media, we have scarcely advanced in our understanding of what attention means.

There is a certain comfort in waking up and finding that Michael Jackson is still the Big Story. At least it tells you that nothing horrible has happened in the world that would force them to move on to real news.

I bashed myself. I cut myself. I caught on fire. I fell: I had been myopically focused on peeling garlic, and hadn't noticed a bin of beef at my feet until I walked into it.

We have seen from experience that, if we are in the habit of walking regularly on the same road, we are able to think about other things while walking, without paying attention to our steps.

There are always those 'Gossip Girl' walk-and-talk scenes where you're walking and just talking about life and death. You're having a serious conversation, looking someone in the eye, but everywhere around you, it's literally a circus.

I can't just listen to music walking down the street unless I have a reason to. I can't just listen to music as a piece of junk in the background. It drives me insane.

I hate people walking down the street listening to the soundtrack of their lives which responds to them but not their setting. I hate the overspill of sound which metro and subway riders are oblivious to because they notice no one and nothing around them.

When Bugs Bunny walks into rehab, people are going to turn and look. People at rehab were stealing my hats and pens and notebooks and asking for autographs. I couldn't concentrate on my problem.

I'm not one of those guys who walks around with a flip phone who doesn't want to be connected. There are times when I'm tech-friendly, and there are times when I personally do want to shut everything off because I'm more creative when I shut off.

I'm not too easily distracted now I've had practice, but I write with nothing to look at. I used to rent an office that just had a view of a wall!

I don't watch TV. I'd probably be a better person if I did, but it makes me anxious.

Being such a big band is never a problem but it can be distracting.

I always played around with writing songs, but when you're spending a lot of time in bars, you have a lot of big ideas, but you don't do much with them.

I have a severe addiction to 'Angry Birds.' I always tell myself, 'One more game...' But then there's always another and another and another.

I became completely addicted to 'Angry Birds' for a while.

I try to block out everything that distracts me. Even a big play, I blank it out.

When that music comes on, I just block everything around me out.

You have to focus on your job, and if you focus on your job, you block everything out.

If you've really got a problem with me, and you came and told me you had a problem with me, I'd be interested to listen to you. But if you're just some loser that sits there and hammers away on some blog form or whatever, I don't have time for that. Why even worry about it?