Quotes About Focus

Pages clarify our yearnings. They keep an eye on our goals. They may provoke us, coax us, comfort us, even cajole us, as well as prioritize and synchronize the day at hand. If we are drifting, the pages will point that out. They will point the way True North. Each morning, as we face the page, we meet ourselves. The pages give us a place to vent and a place to dream. They are intended for no eyes but our own.

A mind too active is no mind at all. THEODORE ROETHKE

Pages must be done longhand. The computer is fast—too fast for our purposes. Writing by computer gets you speed but not depth. Writing by computer is like driving a car at 85 mph. Everything is a blur. "Oh, my God, was that my exit?" Writing by hand is like going 35 mph. "Oh, look, here comes my exit. And look, it has a Sonoco station and a convenience store.

attention is an act of connection

Trying to do "one more thing," we do much less.

By its very nature, discipline is rooted in self-admiration. (Think of discipline as a battery, useful but short-lived.) We admire ourselves for being so wonderful. The discipline itself, not the creative outflow, becomes the point.

We procrastinate because we think we must write our entire project. But to break procrastination, we need only write our first thought. Our second, third, and fourth thoughts follow. Soon we are writing, and procrastination is a thing of our past.

Clutter is the enemy of clarity.

En términos cinematográficos lo que hacemos es ir cambiando el enfoque con lentitud, abriendo el objetivo y alejándonos de esa vida en la que estábamos estancados hasta alcanzar una perspectiva más amplia.

Primeiro, escolha o que gostaria de fazer. O como geralmente irá se alinhar.

Art is born in attention. Its midwife is detail. Art may seem to spring from pain, but perhaps that is because pain serves to focus our attention onto details ... the singular image is what haunts us and becomes art. Even in the midst of pain, this singular image brings delight.

One of the great misconceptions about the artistic life is that it entails great swathes of aimlessness. The truth is that a creative life involves great swathes of attention. Attention is a way to connect and survive.

The best life for a writer is the life which helps him write the best books he can.

The better you know someone, the less well you often see them (and the less well they can therefore be transferred into fiction). They may be so close as to be out of focus, and there is no operating novelist to dispel the blur.

Nothing else mattered. Of course there was "the rest of my life," both present (my degree course) and future (job, salary, social position, retirement, pension, death). You could say that I put this part of my life on hold. Except that's not right: she was my life, and the rest wasn't. Everything else could and must be sacrificed, with or without thought, as and when necessary. Though "sacrifice" implies loss. I never felt a sense of loss.

The dangerous charm of GPC was that everything in the world could be called up; if you didn't look out, a couple of sessions might turn you from a serious enquirer into a mere gape-mouthed browser.

I'd read somewhere that if you want to make people pay attention to what you're saying, you don't raise your voice but lower it: this is what really commands attention.

While Nigel chattered away about the ghoulish features of dying which interested him, I grew melancholy at the half-finished things which a death persuades you to focus on.

When you're in the world looking for only one thing, you find it or it finds you. The obsession can be mutual

Focus our attention on the kingdom you are creating rather than on the one Satan is destroying. Ps 9:1-2 Give thanks and tell his wonderful deeds.

eyes fixed on her as though she were the first sign of land after months at sea.

Once I have the target in my sights, he said, close to her ear, I think of what I love most in the world. What will happen if I miss? Will they be harmed? Will they go hungry? Will I see them again? He paused at length. Because I've learned that once you know what truly matters in life, and once you know who and what you truly love, then you know who you are...and your aim will always be true.

the brightening he detected in the room around him might just be the whites of dozens of eyes as they widened [upon him]

We all have different skill sets, interests, concentration cycles, and energy levels. The key is to find out how long it really takes YOU to do the things you need to do and move away from wishful thinking.