Centre Of Attention Quotes

The nice thing about having a deeply weird, highly opinionated friend was that you never had to be the centre of attention if you didn't want to be. The ~ Alexis Hall

The club is too loud to talk, so after a couple of drinks, everyone feels like the centre of attention but completely cut off from participating with anyone else.
You're the corpse in an English murder mystery. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Luis is right there. I point to the corner of the yard, where my little brother is the centre of attention doing imitations of barnyard animals. I have yet to inform him that talent isn't as much of a chick magnet when you get into junior high. ~ Simone Elkeles

I was one of those whose school report would always say, 'Could pay more attention.' I spent my time trying to be the centre of attention or the class joker instead of knuckling down. Far from the perfect student. ~ Suzanne Shaw

There is no evidence that suggests women are naturally better at caring for children ... with the fact of child-bearing out of the centre of attention, there is even more reason for treating girls first as human beings, then as women. ~ Margaret Mead

If you are playing King Lear you are the centre of attention anyway. You don't need to draw attention to yourself. It's all laid out for you. ~ Ian McKellen

I think that I always loved being the centre of attention! ~ Katherine Heigl

Once I began doing stand-up, I didn't get a kick out of the applause or being the centre of attention - but I did get a kick out of the jigsaw puzzle aspect of it, searching for the right bit, adding another few pieces each night until the bigger picture appears. That's the appeal: the challenge of it. ~ Stephen Merchant

It is great fun dying in the United States of America. It is great fun first of all for the undertakers who make a wonderful living out of it but also for the deceased who suddenly becomes the centre of attention and fuss. ~ George Mikes

On her ideal dinner party: 'Virginia Woolf, Coleridge and Charles Lamb would have to be there. I would be scurrying around in the kitchen with Mary Lamb - she and I would do the cooking. Of course my brother would be there. I think that's about enough. That number would sustain a single conversation. Virginia and I would be the centre of attention. ~ Anne Fadiman

Ah, now,' the count said casually, 'you must do as you wish, Viscount, because this is your business and you are in charge; but I must say that in your place I should say nothing of all these adventures. Your life story is a novel; and people, though they love novels bound between two yellow paper covers, are oddly suspicious of those which come to them in living vellum, even when they are as gilded as you are capable of being. Allow me to point out this difficulty to you, Monsieur le Vicomte, which is that no sooner will you have told your touching story to someone, that it will travel all round society, completely distorted. You will have to play the part of Antony, and Antony's day has passed somewhat. You might perhaps enjoy the reputation of a curiosity, but not everyone likes to be the centre of attention and the butt of comment. It might possibly fatigue you. ~ Alexandre Dumas

I don't really want to be the centre of attention. ~ Brian O'Driscoll

A screaming vampire is always the centre of attention. ~ Terry Pratchett

Ever since I was a child, I have loved being the centre of attention, but similarly, I can't remember a time in my life that I haven't battled with all sorts of quandaries, fears and weaknesses. ~ Gerard Butler

I have got so low that I have asked to be hospitalized and for deep narcosis (sleep). I cannot stand being awake. The pain is too much ... Something has happened to me, this vital spark has stopped burning - I go to a dinner table now and I don't say a word, just sit there like a dodo. Normally I am the centre of attention, keeps the conversation going, - so that is depressing in itself. It's like another person taking over, very strange. The most important thing I say is 'good evening' and then I go quiet. ~ Spike Milligan

I can't promise to love someone for ever. I can't imagine anyone could promise to love me for ever. I mean, it sounds like a lovely day, but I go to red carpet events all the time and I'm the centre of attention so it's not like I'm looking for that! ~ Kelly Brook

I had a mother who was very emotionally demanding, wanting to be the centre of attention. As they say in EastEnders, she thought it was all about 'er. I spent a lot of time trying to work out what was going on. ~ Andrew Davies

I can see why people love the idea of a big white wedding - it is a day when they are the centre of attention and get to wear a beautiful dress. But that sounds awful to me because that is like getting ready to walk down the red carpet. ~ Lucy Punch

To be fully human has little to do with always being the centre of attention, getting your way and having all your ambitions met. To be fully human is to be like Christ, to 'count others better than yourselves' (Phil 2:13)...It takes rare strength to treat others as more important than yourself. ~ Dick Keyes

People say I try to be the centre of attention, but I think I just try to make people laugh. ~ Jack P. Shepherd

Over recent years, [there's been] a strong tendency to require assessment of children and teachers so that [teachers] have to teach to tests and the test determines what happens to the child, and what happens to the teacher...that's guaranteed to destroy any meaningful educational process: it means the teacher cannot be creative, imaginative, pay attention to individual students' needs, that a student can't pursue things [...] and the teacher's future depends on it as well as the students'...the people who are sitting in the offices, the bureaucrats designing this - they're not evil people, but they're working within a system of ideology and doctrines, which turns what they're doing into something extremely harmful [...] the assessment itself is completely artificial; it's not ranking teachers in accordance with their ability to help develop children who reach their potential, explore their creative interests and so on [...] you're getting some kind of a 'rank,' but it's a 'rank' that's mostly meaningless, and the very ranking itself is harmful. It's turning us into individuals who devote our lives to achieving a rank, not into doing things that are valuable and important.

It's highly destructive...in, say, elementary education, you're training kids this way [...] I can see it with my own children: when my own kids were in elementary school (at what's called a good school, a good-quality suburban school), by the time they were in third grade, they were dividing up ~ Noam Chomsky

Jesus does not respond to our worry-filled way of living by saying that we should not be so busy with worldly affairs. He does not try to pull us away from the many events, activities, and people that make up our lives ... He asks us to shift the point of gravity, to relocate the center of our attention, to change our priorities. Jesus does not speak about a change of activities, a change in contacts, or even a change of pace. He speaks about a change of heart. ~ Henri Nouwen

In popular houses where visitors like to go again and again, there is always a happy combination of some attention on the part of the hostess and the perfect freedom of the guests to occupy their time as they choose. ~ Emily Post

We think now that love is a kind of giving of attention. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

And do you know the oddest thing about murder and war and violence?'
'Oh, Mary Shelley, please stop talking about those types of things.'
'The oddest thing is that they all go against the lessons that grown-ups teach children. Don't hurt anyone. Solve your problems with language instead of fists. Share your things. Don't take something that belongs to someone else without asking. Use your manners. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Why do mothers and fathers bother spending so much time teaching children these lessons when grown-ups don't pay any attention to the words themselves? ~ Cat Winters

The universe is a great unknown wonderful place, and we know nothing, really, to speak of about it. I think that either depresses and frightens one or is exhilarating. We are very important, and we're not important in quite the way we think we are. Each one of us is unique, and we can find out a whole lot just by examining ourselves. I think that's the essential thing. Not paying attention to how you're going to make money, just paying attention to whatever is around you. Each one of those seconds is your only chance. It's your life. And it's wonderful. The more attention that we pay to our ordinary lives leads to a real elation that we're here at all. ~ W.S. Merwin

The white hands of the tenebrous belle deal the hand of destiny. Her fingernails are longer than those of the mandarins of ancient China and each is pared to a fine point. These and teeth as fine and white as spikes of spun sugar are the visible signs of the destiny she wistfully attempts to evade via the arcana; her claws and teeth have been sharpened on centuries of corpses, she is the last bud of the poison tree that sprang from the loins of Vlad the Impaler who picnicked on corpses in the forests of Transylvania.
The walls of her bedroom are hung with black satin, embroidered with tears of pearl. At the rooms four corners are funerary urns and bowls which emit slumbrous, pungent fumes of incense. In the centre is an elaborate catafalque, in ebony, surrounded by long candles in enormous silver candlesticks. In a white lace negligee stained a little with blood, the Countess climbs up on her catafalque at dawn each morning and lies down in an open coffin. ~ Angela Carter

I felt sort of sad that I couldn't remember the last time, before tonight, that I'd paid such close attention to the sky. It felt like that must be some kind of sign that I'd lost my innocence and grown up without even realizing it. ~ Tara Altebrando

What shall I compare it to, this fantastic thing I call my Mind? To a waste-paper basket, to a sieve choked with sediment, or to a barrel full of floating froth and refuse? No, what it is really most like is a spider's web, insecurely hung on leaves and twigs, quivering in every wind, and sprinkled with dewdrops and dead flies. And at its centre, pondering forever the Problem of Existence, sits motionless the spider-like and uncanny Soul. ~ Logan Pearsall Smith

An effective U.S. policy toward Sudan - one capable of changing the situation in the south and affecting the lives of its people - will require top-level attention and a great deal of energy. It should have three elements: aid, diplomacy, and financial disclosure. ~ Elliott Abrams

O lower self, which is better, the Garden of eternity or a glimpse of this world's unlawful bounty and its wretched, fleeting rubbish? You are capable of obtaining that permanent blessing in exchange for your worshipful obedience, so do not be mean in your aspiration, vile in your intention, and base in your deeds. Look at the doves when they fly aloft, and see how their worth ascends and their value increases! You must raise all your aspiration heavenwards. You must not waste what you have gained by your worshipful obedience.

You must therefore pay close attention, O miserable wretch, and beware of being among the deprived. ~ Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

As if a man's soul were not too small to begin with, they have dwarfed an narrowed theirs by a life of all work and no play; until here they are at forty, with a listless attention, a mind vacant of all material of amusement, and not one thought to rub against another, while they wait for the train. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

What will carry us into living freedom is not the holding of attention so much as the holding of appreciation. ~ Adyashanti

If people were less the centre of their own universe much trouble and pain would be saved. ~ S.M. C.

The table was set for two, as usual, with one exception. Right smack in the middle was an old chipped crock cookie jar. Glazing cracks started at the bottom and wove their way in different directions, some on the sides, with others winding their way around in circles.
"Are we having cookies with our waffles?" Jill asked.
"Look at it closely," Sawyer grinned, "Pay especially close attention to the lid."
"Daisies," She smiled.
"I would have gone out into the pasture and picked some wild ones for you, but it's the wrong time of year. That's all I could find with a daisy on it," Sawyer said ~ Carolyn Brown

I HAVE NO DOUBT THAT when this book comes out, Scientologists will scream about religious intolerance, say that I am a liar, that I was kicked out of the church, and call Troublemaker the work of a hateful bigot or a self-absorbed person with an "insatiable craving for attention." (That last part might not be totally untrue; I am an actress, after all.) What they will likely not do, however, is actually read this book, because that would be going against one of the basic tenets of Scientology. A member should not read or watch anything generated by someone whom the church ~ Leah Remini

I suggest that the introductory courses in science, at all levels from grade school through college, be radically revised. Leave the fundamentals, the so-called basics, aside for a while, and concentrate the attention of all students on the things that are not known. ~ Lewis Thomas

The task of liturgy is to order the life of the holy community following the text of Holy Scripture. It consists of two movements. First it gets us into the sanctuary, the place of adoration and attention, listening and receiving and believing before God. There is a lot involved, all the parts of our lives ordered to all aspects of the revelation of God in Jesus.

Then it gets us out of the sanctuary into the world into places of obeying and loving ordering our lives as living sacrifices in the world to the glory of God. There is a lot involved, all the parts of our lives out on the street participating in the work of salvation. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

One's attention has to penetrate the chaotic activity, pass through all the layers of subtle thought, and at last emerge into silence. This is the basic process of transcending. ~ Deepak Chopra

His mind was completely occupied with the image of Aline by the river, the rich mass of her pinned-up hair, the exquisite lines of her body and throat.
Time had only made Aline's beauty more eloquent. Her body was ripe and fully developed, the form of a woman in her prime. With maturity, her face had become more delicately sculpted, the nose thinner, the lips faded from deep rose to the pale shade of pink that tinted the inside of a seashell. And there was that damned, never-forgotten beauty mark, the festive dark fleck that lured his attention to the tender corner of her mouth. ~ Lisa Kleypas

How did you get so scratched up then, Emlynn?" He looked at me uncertainly again.

I felt wildly like laughing. Too many swooping highs and plummeting lows. What a weird few
days. Weird being a massive understatement.

"Cr-Crawling through gorse bushes." I took a perverse delight in answering his questions in a way that told him nothing at all. I'd never paid much attention to boys before. Maybe Grace was onto something after all.

"Crawling through gorse," he repeated. "Part of your action-girl antics, no doubt?"

"N-no doubt." I smirked again. ~ J.A. Ironside

Where visual artists are concerned, the Baroque sculptor and architect Bernini and the painter and sculptor Picasso were clearly adept at both experiential and instrumental attending, says Tellegen, as is the modern architect Frank Gehry. Choosing a literary example, he says that F. Scott Fitzgerald once admitted to "wrapping one of his romantic flings in cellophane" for later artistic use and notes that "this kind of heartless but honest professionalism is not uncommon among creative people. ~ Winifred Gallagher

Suddenly, [Cecilia Washburn] was getting a lot of attention from her friends," Pabst explained to the jury. "Attention from the dean of the pharmacy school ... .Attention by Dean Charles Couture, the then dean of students; by the Crime Victim Advocate office; by the nurse, [Claire] Francoeur ... .Miss Washburn got attention by the investigator and by the prosecutor. Her regret was replaced by sympathy, attention, and support, and a little bit of drama, and a little bit of celebrity ... .Her regret, fueled by drama, became purpose. She received a new public - and important - identity: victim. ~ Jon Krakauer

Like so much in the centre, it was under construction or reconstruction. Scaffolding, cranes, the temporary business of architects and workmen, the portable toilets, the short-term fencing, the crash-barriers and the skips. Rubble, more rubble. There was a history of Berlin to be written on the topic of rubble. ~ Gail Jones

No one truth is rightly held till it is clearly conceived and stated, and no single truth is adequately comprehended till it is viewed in harmonious relations to all the other truths of the system of which Christ is the centre ~ Archibald Alexander Hodge

As we grow in our family ... let's not forget that we, as a couple, still need attention ... let's not lose grip of the excitement of our flirtation and our passion for each other ... while we tend to the 'we,' let's not forget the 'us'. ~ Steve Maraboli

When you're talking about capital and financial things, which I certainly pay a lot of attention to, I base those decisions on one question that I typically ask myself, which is 'Does it help us to build a better company?' ~ Jim Bankoff

Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

To listen fully means to pay close attention to what is being said beneath the words. You listen not only to the 'music,' but to the essence of the person speaking. You listen not only for what someone knows, but for what he or she is. Ears operate at the speed of sound, which is far slower than the speed of light the eyes take in. Generative listening is the art of developing deeper silences in yourself, so you can slow our mind's hearing to your ears' natural speed, and hear beneath the words to their meaning. ~ Peter Senge

I'd hoped the language might come on its own, the way it comes to babies, but people don't talk to foreigners the way they talk to babies. They don't hypnotize you with bright objects and repeat the same words over and over, handing out little treats when you finally say "potty" or "wawa." It got to the point where I'd see a baby in the bakery or grocery store and instinctively ball up my fists, jealous over how easy he had it. I wanted to lie in a French crib and start from scratch, learning the language from the ground floor up. I wanted to be a baby, but instead, I was an adult who talked like one, a spooky man-child demanding more than his fair share of attention.
Rather than admit defeat, I decided to change my goals. I told myself that I'd never really cared about learning the language. My main priority was to get the house in shape. The verbs would come in due time, but until then I needed a comfortable place to hide. ~ David Sedaris

An extensive empire must be supported by a refined system of policy and oppression; in the centre, an absolute power, prompt in action and rich in resources; a swift and easy communication with the extreme parts; fortifications to check the first effort of rebellion; a regular administration to protect and punish; and a well-disciplined army to inspire fear, without provoking discontent and despair. ~ Edward Gibbon

The day is past when schools could afford to give sufficient time and attention to the teaching of the ancient languages to enable the student to get that enjoyment out of classical literature that made the lives of our grandfathers so rich. ~ James Loeb

I've been strongly influenced, in technique as well as subject matter, by some of the early 20th-century book illustrators - Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac in particular, Burne-Jones and other Pre-Raphaelites, and the Arts-&-Crafts movement they engendered. I'm continually inspired by Rembrandt, Breughel (I've wondered whether his brilliant "Tower of Babel" had inspired Tolkien's description of Minas Tyrith), Hieronymous Bosch, Albrecht Durer, and Turner; it's not necessarily that they influence my work in any particular direction, more that their example raises my spirits, re-affirms my belief in the power of images to move and delight us, and shows me how much further I have to go, how much is possible. Having visited Venice and Florence for the first time, I am besotted with the Italian Renaissance artists - Botticelli, Bellini, da Vinci and others. Their work is calm, controlled, and yet each face and landscape contains such passion. In Botticelli's paintings, every pebble and every leaf is rendered with a religious devotion; there is reverence inherent in paying such close attention to every stone, turning painting itself into a form of worship, an act of prayer. ~ Alan Lee (artist)

Don't put people, or anything else, on pedestals, not even your children. Avoid global labels such as genius or weirdo. Realize those closest get the benefit of the doubt and so do the most beautiful and radiant among us. Know the halo effect causes you to see a nice person as temporarily angry and an angry person as temporarily nice. Know that one good quality, or a memory of several, can keep in your life people who may be doing you more harm than good. Pay attention to the fact that when someone seems nice and upbeat, the words coming out of his or her mouth will change in meaning, and if that same person were depressive, arrogant, or foul in some other way, your perceptions of those same exact words would change along with the person's other features. ~ David McRaney

This is Hell," he tried to explain for the third time. "Not a drop-in centre. You can't just turn up and say, 'Oh, I was just in the neighbourhood and thought I'd call by and have a bit of a chinwag with Lord Satan.' It simply isn't done."
"No," said the infuriating mortal. "It hasn't been done. There is a difference. May I pass now?"
"No, you may not. Satan's a very busy ... um, is very busy right now. He can't go interrupting his work for every Tom, Dick, and Johannes"
he paused for effect, but the human just looked at him with a faint air of what seemed to be pity
"Harry, that is, who turns up demanding audience."
"Really?" said Cabal. "I had no idea. I thought this would be an uncommon occurrence, unique even, but you seem to imply that it happens all the time. Fair enough. ~ Jonathan L. Howard

I actually got more attention from one episode of 'The Sopranos' than I did from two years of 'The L Word.' ~ Sarah Shahi

Of course, the slightest little mistake on the wire will deprive me of my life, so in that sense, yes, it is a dangerous profession. You have to pay attention; if not, you will lose your life. ~ Philippe Petit

His hand grazed her inner thigh as he shifted the manual transmission into reverse, and this lightest of touches sent a shiver through Devin. "Cold?" he asked, backing the pickup away from the trees to turn around. "You can turn on the heat if you'd like."

Devin shook her head. "I'm fine," she said in a quiet, breathy voice that she couldn't quite control.

The tone caught Ronin's attention, and he gave her a long look before shifting back into first gear. Again, his fingertips grazed her soft skin, and her breath caught again.

Ronin's eyes fell shut for a moment. "Damn, honey," he whispered. ~ Sibylla Matilde

Everybody wants what feels good; and if we wish a symphony of attention from a bunch of caring people and a harmony of happy sounds during our lifetime, we must not act like dark horses, saving up our emotions, but be bountiful to all significant others. ( "Axelle Red ") ~ Erik Pevernagie

People want to download publications quickly and read them without cruft. Publications that started in print carry too much baggage and usually have awful apps. 'The Magazine' was designed from the start to be streamlined, natively digital, and respectful of readers' time and attention. ~ Marco Arment

Australia as a nation, as a set of cities and some regional centres, that project died a death and we didn't get it up, but I still think there's merit in that. ~ Susan Oliver

On Being Blue celebrates both language and that which it represents and carefully draws our attention to that difficult middle ground on which the writer finds himself in lifelong struggle to join the two without sullying or smearing the clarities of either. ~ Gilbert Sorrentino

When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, 'I am going to produce a work of art.' I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. ~ George Orwell

The transition from tenseness, self-responsibility, and worry, to equanimity, receptivity, and peace, is the most wonderful of all those shiftings of inner equilibrium, those changes of personal centre of energy, which I have analyzed so often; and the chief wonder of it is that it so often comes about, not by doing, but by simply relaxing and throwing the burden down. ~ William James

Eleanor Roosevelt had both her admirers and her detractors. And they admired her and detracted from her for many of the same reasons. People who liked her social activism, who thought that she was calling attention to problems that needed solving, were all for her. ~ William A. Rusher

I believe that the issue of mental health services for our troops deploying or returning from combat is one that demands the attention of this body, if only for a few minutes today. ~ Rosa DeLauro

It is a mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble from my hand alters the centre of gravity of the universe. ~ Thomas Carlyle

In the absence of a widely practiced and capable attention to our use of the land, to the land-use economies, and to the natural sources of our life, we have a national, or global, economy consisting entirely of capital (rated at monetary value), minimal labor ("jobs," merely numbered, and the numbers always liable to reduction by technology), information (infinite perhaps, but never sufficient), marketing (seduction of the gullible), and consumption (conversion of goods into waste or poison). And so we have lost patriotism in the old sense of love for one's country, and have replaced it with an ignorant, hard-hearted military-industrial nationalism that devours the country. Under ~ Wendell Berry