Quotes about Attention

If one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk.

It's most dangerous nowadays for a husband to pay any attention to his wife in public. It always makes people think that he beats her when they are alone. The world has grown so suspicious of anything that looks like a happy married life.

Normal people live distracted, rarely fully present. Weird people silence the distractions and remain fully in the moment.

Had you noticed them before? he asked. No, never before, she replied. And now you will always see them, he said.

This is the day of dramatisation. Merely stating a truth isn't enough. The truth has to be made vivid, interesting, dramatic. You have to use showmanship. The movies do it. Television does it. And you will have to do it if you want attention.

Shut out the yesterdays which have lighted fools the way to dusty death…. The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter. Shut off the future as tightly as the past…. The future is today…. There is no tomorrow. The day of man's salvation is now.

To recall a voter's name is statesmanship. To forget it is oblivion.

He wasn't much of a listener, not a great payer of attention to things outside his head.

Child, you listen to me, and you look me straight in the eyes when I'm talking to you. I may be just old hired help, and a country woman to boot, but I'm a human. And you know what? God thought of me. He actually took the time to dream me up. I may not be much to look at, but what you see first started in the mind of God, so don't stand there and ignore me like I don't exist. You remember that." Miss

You always have God's undivided attention.

In other words, Job is saying to God: If I am important enough for You to keep track of my every mistake and punish me for them, then am I not worth five minutes of Your time to tell me what I am being punished for? And if I am too insignificant to merit Your personal attention, then why am I important enough for You to measure out my punishment?

Men often mistake notoriety for fame, and would rather be noticed for their vices than not be noticed at all.