Quotes About Focus

Her grandmother laughed. "Oh, hon," she said, "it's never wise to look over your shoulder." "Huh?" "Just run the race on your own, I say. Don't fret about the others." This didn't make sense, for a moment, but then it did. Candle felt as if she'd had some burden lifted from her, and she gave Mercy a grateful smile and Mercy smiled back.

Sometimes it seemed to her that with all her fretting over Denny, she had let her other children slip through her fingers unnoticed. Not that she had neglected them, but she certainly hadn't screwed up her eyes and focused on them the way she had focused on Denny. And yet it was Denny who complained of feeling slighted!

Once you give your attention to the title Don't Think of an Elephant, no matter how hard you try you cannot not think of an elephant. It is the same way with stories.

Admire the world for never ending on you -- as you would an opponent, without taking your eyes away from him, or walking away.

For writing a first draft requires from the writer a peculiar internal state which ordinary life does not induce. ... how to set yourself spinning?

Aim for the chopping block. If you aim for the wood, you will have nothing. Aim past the wood, aim through the wood; aim for the chopping block.

Appealing workplaces are to be avoided. One wants a room with no view, so imagination can meet memory in the dark.

There is always an enormous temptation to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end.

The dedicated life is worth living. You must give your whole heart to whatever you do.

Nate liked money. It was a sleek and clever invention, beautiful in the way it lubricated power and focused people's attention. But it had a clumsy, brutal side, too. Money bludgeoned people without it into silence, shut them away in neighborhoods like this.

Maybe the trick was not to panic. In life, as in the bewildering business of writing stories and flinging them out into the world, you had to focus on the page in front of you.

She lived her life believing in the power of simplicity. Whether it had to do with fashion, work or relationships, she used to say, Boil it all down to what counts the most: What is the essence of what you are trying to do, what is the most important thing? Things only get complicated when you are trying to address too many issues.

We're not really conscious of what we're doing most of the time.

The 'busy' thing isn't a commitment, it's an evasion.

I came to think of it as a kind of zen practice: the Zen of not fucking up.

Let specialists obsess about minutiae. Soros's motto was "Invest first, investigate later.

Life works better when we know how to glance at things but gaze at God.

Stick with the Dips that are likely to pan out, and quit the Cul-de-Sacs to focus your resources

Your job isn't to do your job. Your job is to decide what to do next.

Here's a quote from ultramarathoner Dick Collins: Decide before the race the conditions that will cause you to stop and drop out. You don't want to be out there saying, "Well gee, my leg hurts, I'm a little dehydrated, I'm sleepy, I'm tired, and it's cold and windy." And talk yourself into quitting. If you are making a decision based on how you feel at that moment, you will probably make the wrong decision.

The most important lesson I can share about brand marketing is this: you definitely, certainly, and surely don't have enough time and money to build a brand for everyone. You can't. Don't try. Be specific. Be very specific.

The challenge is to focus on the work, not on the fear that comes from doing the work.

The linchpin has figured out that we get only a certain number of brain cycles to spend each day. Spending even one on a situation out of our control has a significant opportunity cost.

Your work is too important to be left to how you feel today.