Paying Attention Quotes

It says the American people are full of goodness and wisdom, and you just have to be paying attention. And sometimes that's hard to do when you're inside this bubble, but this was a little portal through which I could remind myself of that every day. The letters are beautiful, aren't they? -Obama ~ Jeanne Marie Laskas

People paying attention to vibratory activity, not in reaction to a fixed ideal performance, but each time attentively to how it happens to be this time, not necessarily two times the same. A music that transports the listener to the moment where he is. ~ John Cage

Rule Number One is this: If you're open to learning, you get your life-lessons delivered as gently as the tickle of a feather. But if you're defensive, if you stubbornly persist in being right instead of learning the lesson at hand, if you stop paying attention to the tickles, the nudges, the clues - boom! Sledgehammer. ~ Gay Hendricks

Listening is active. At its most basic level, it's about focus, paying attention. ~ Simon Sinek

I like geography best, he said, because your mountains & rivers know the secret. Pay no attention to boundaries. ~ Brian Andreas

Ambient awareness is the experience of knowing what's going on in the lives of other people - what they're thinking about, what they're doing, what they're looking at - by paying attention to the small stray status messages that people are putting online. We're now able to stitch together these fantastic details and mental maps of what is going on in other people's lives. ~ Clive Thompson

One final insight about prioritizing involves getting disciplined about what you don't put on the stage. This means not thinking when you don't have to, becoming disciplined about not paying attention to non-urgent tasks unless, or until, it's truly essential that you do. ~ David Rock

Thinking isn't something you think about. It comes naturally. Thinking involves many things. It involves being an observer. It involves analyzing things, taking in what's around you in the world and finding how to make it inspire your work or turn it into a lesson to teach your children; it's paying attention to details. That's what thinking is: processing. ~ Madonna Ciccone

Utensil

While feasting
On venison stew
After we buried my mother,
I recognized my spoon

And realized my family
Had been using it
For at least forty-two years.
How does one commemorate

The ordinary? I thanked
The spoon for being a spoon
And finished my stew.
How does one get through

A difficult time? How does
A son properly mourn his mother?
It helps to run the errands--
To get shit done. I washed

That spoon, dried it,
And put it back
In the drawer,
But I did it consciously,

Paying attention
To my hands, my wrists,
And the feel of steel
Against my fingertips.

Then my wife drove us back
Home to Seattle, where I wrote
This poem about ordinary
Grief. Thank you, poem,

For being a poem. Thank you,
Paper and ink, for being paper
And ink. Thank you, desk,
For being a desk. Thank you,

Mother, for being my mother.
Thank you for your imperfect love.
It almost worked. It mostly worked.
Or partly worked. It was almost enough. ~ Sherman Alexie

If our theology doesn't shift and change over our lifetimes, then I have to wonder if we're paying attention. ~ Sarah Bessey

Dialectics is the philosophy of opposites."
I thought about this. "How do you make a philosophy out of opposites?"
"Well, you know how people are. They like to see things in black and white? Up or down, male or female?"
She had my attention now. "Uh-huh."
"Well, dialectics says that's all bullshit. That life is not about opposites, but about finding the balance between all these extremes."
I tried to sound less interested than I actually was. "How do you do that?" I said. "Find balance, I mean?"
"By paying attention," she said. "By trying to see how everything also contains its opposite." She took a drag on her cigarette. "Because if you live your life at the extremes, you go nuts. If you want to make any sense out of the world, you have to live in the gray."
"That sounds hard," I said.
"The hell yes it's hard," she said. "People don't like gray. It makes people uncomfortable. ~ Jennifer Finney Boylan

A flustered-looking woman hurries after him, but he doesn't stop. I turn around to watch, silently rooting the kid on. I want to crouch down beside him and tell him to use the tunnel, to keep flying through the dark while he's still allowed. "When's the last time we did that?" I ask Lacey when we reach my car, and she shrugs. Then I'm starting the car and tears prick the backs of my eyes and I hate that so many Lasts happen when you aren't paying attention. ~ Sarah Everett

I've certainly done some turkeys along the way and made some dumb choices in my career, mostly early on. I'm one of the lucky ones who got to make a lot of mistakes very early when no one was paying attention. ~ George Clooney

You mean I might end up like you one day?" I asked, alarmed at the thought of sounding so serious and stuffy.
"You might," Mr Crepsley said, "though I would not bet on it. Seba commanded my utmost respect, so I tried hard to copy what he did. You, on the other hand, seem to be determined to do the opposite of everything I say."
"I'm not that bad," I grinned, but there was some grain of truth in his words. I'd always been stubborn. I admired Mr Crepsley more than he knew, but hated the idea of looking like a pushover who did everything he was told. Sometimes I disobeyed the vampire just so he wouldn't think I was paying attention to what he said! ~ Darren Shan

By the way, in case you weren't paying attention or something, did you catch what Mr. Powell called me? "Young artist." I bet you missed that. ~ Gary D. Schmidt

Companies that were paying attention understood they were witnessing the birth of the "self-directed consumer", because the internet and all the other tools for the flat world had created a means for every consumer to customize exactly the price, experience, and service he or she wanted. ~ Thomas L. Friedman

Sometimes during the day, I consciously focus on some ordinary object and allow myself a momentary "paying-attention." This paying-attention gives meaning to my life. I don't know who it was, but someone said that careful attention paid to anything is a window into the universe. Pausing to think this way, even for a brief moment, is very important. It gives quality to my day. ~ Robert Fulghum

I was the first records editor at Rolling Stone, and there were no rules. There was nothing to fall back on as to how do you write about this kind of music, so people were trying absolutely everything with a great sense of freedom and experimentation and success and failure, and a feeling of, My God, people are actually paying attention to this. Let's pretend they aren't because we don't want to be intimidated by what somebody might think of what we're saying. ~ Greil Marcus

[Jules] slides into a seat beside me with her hot lunch tray, sighing. "Four hours, thirty-six minutes, and twelve seconds till we're out of purgatory for the weekend."
"Maybe later," I murmur, still distracted by the day's previous events.
"So, let me show you how a conversation works. I say something, and then you say something back that actually relates to what I was talking about, as if you were even the least bit interested."
"Huh?" I say. ~ Jodi Picoult

We are simply committing ourselves to paying attention to our life. We use meditation to help us in that attention process. We are not trying to become good meditators. We are trying to wake up. ~ William Martin

Tom Moysten!" Mr. Larson yelled. "You're not paying attention!"
I whipped around in my chair and closed my sketchbook.
"Yes, I am," I said.
(Laughter.)
"Then tell me what I just said."
You know how sometimes you can repeat what someone just said even if you didn't really hear it at the time? Well, I couldn't. Not this time, anyway.
"You said I wasn't paying attention," I said.
(More laughter.)
Mr. Larson wasn't amused.
"Oh, a comedian," he said. "Perhaps you'd like to stand up here and tell a few jokes."
"No, thanks."
"Afraid to make a fool of yourself?" he asked.
"No, that's your job," I said.
(Long, loud laughter.) ~ Emily Rodda

As human beings, we haven't lost our intuition; we just stopped paying attention ~ Heidi DuPree

When we practice paying attention, moving with ease of body and mind, and being efficient, our body becomes very capable and strong, and the mind is able to be calm and travel further inward, where we have direct access to your unique creativity, intuition, and feelings of connectivity. ~ Tara Stiles

Generally I find that kids ask better questions than you get with adults. Something that kids will do a lot is, they're so nervous, and they're not really paying attention, so they'll ask the same question someone just asked. And you're trying to be nice and not embarrass them any more than they are already. ~ James Patterson

Holder: "Why'd you stop talking?"
Sky: "Talking? Holder, I'm reading. There's a difference. And from the looks of it, you haven't been paying a lick of attention."
Holder: "Oh, I've been paying attention. To your mouth. Maybe not to the words coming out of it, but definitely to your mouth. ~ Colleen Hoover

Inspiration is really all around us. I pay attention to a lot of different fields. I stay up on current events. I go to community meetings to see what concerns the people in my neighborhood. Paying attention to social interactions offline really inform interactions online. The real world is a bottomless source of inspiration for what you can build. ~ Caterina Fake

Mindfulness has to do with waking up and living in harmony with oneself and with the world. It is examining who we are, constantly questioning our views of the world and our place in it, while cultivating appreciation for the fullness of each moment we are alive. It is the direct opposite of taking life for granted. It is empowering as well, because paying attention in this way opens channels to deep reservoirs of creativity, intelligence, imagination, clarity, determination, choice, and wisdom within us. ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

The saddest part about being human is not paying attention. Presence is the gift of life. ~ Stephen Levine

Experience means nothing unless you're paying attention. ~ Stephen Smoke

Coincidences "Syncs" or some call Serendipities are signs of God making corrections to your chosen spiritual path,.......Omens are signals to turn back ,..as your not paying attention to your "Coincidences. ~ Eric B. Watson

Life sure went by quick when you weren't paying attention. It took forever to go from a child to a grown-up. The middle-aged years went by at a steady clip, and everything else after that just sort of whizzed by. ~ Karen McQuestion

It's evident to anyone paying attention that zero tolerance equals 100 percent stupidity. But you have to understand that zero-tolerance rules aren't about protecting kids. They exist to protect the adults who are too cowardly to make judgments. ~ Jonathan V. Last

I try not to apologize, especially publicly. That's a slippery slope, because I'm a comedian. If you take anything I'm saying too seriously, then you shouldn't be paying attention in the first place. If you find me offensive, don't follow me. ~ Chelsea Handler

I've considered everything you said earlier. I've made a decision. But first I'd like to explain that it has nothing to do with your personal endowments, which are quite considerable. It's just that - "
"My personal endowments?"
"Yes. Your intelligence. Your attractiveness."
"Oh."
Wondering why his voice sounded odd, Amelia darted a questioning glance at him. The amber eyes were bright with laughter. What had she said to amuse him? "Are you paying attention?"
"Believe me, when my personal endowments are being discussed, I always pay attention. Go on. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Annie, just once could you not give me a hard time?"
"Maybe someday, but not today."
"Annie, you're making Theo sad." Neither of them realized Livia had been paying attention to them. She peered around Theo's legs. "I think you should tell him your free secret."
"I don't!" She gave Livia a death glare. "And you'd better not, either."
Livia peered up at Theo. "Then you better tell your free secret."
He stiffened. "Annie doesn't want to hear my free secret."
"You have a free secret?" Annie asked.
"Yes, he does." Livia puffed up with four-year-old self-importance. "And I know it."
Now Theo was the one giving Livia the death glare. "Find some pinecones. A lot of them." He jabbed his hand toward the trees behind the gazebo. "Over there."
Annie could only stand so much. "Later," she said. "We need to get back to the cottage and see if mom's awake."
Livia's face turned into a thundercloud. "I don't want to go!"
"Don't give Annie a hard time," he said. "I'll finish the fairy house. You can see it later."
The fire had disrupted Livia's world. She hadn't had enough sleep, and she was as cranky as only an overstimulated four-your-old could be. "I'm not going!" she cried. "And if you don't let me stay, I'll tell your free secrets!"
Annie grabbed her arm. "You can't tell a free secret!"
"You absolutely can't!" Theo exclaimed.
"I can!" Livia retorted. "If they're both the same! ~ Susan Elizabeth Phillips

PAYING ATTENTION TO GOD We bless GOD, oh yes - we bless him now, we bless him always! PSALM 115:18, THE MESSAGE Prayer is the most thoroughly present act we have as humans, and the most energetic: it sockets the immediate past into the immediate future and makes a flexible, living joint of them. The Amen gathers what has just happened into the Maranatha of the about to happen and produces a Benediction. We pay attention to God and lead others to pay attention to God. It hardly matters that so many people would rather pay attention to their standards of living, or their self-image, or their zeal to make a mark in the world. The reality is God: worship or flee. THE CONTEMPLATIVE PASTOR ~ Eugene H. Peterson

We say that children are bad at paying attention, but we really mean that they're bad at not paying attention - they easily get distracted by anything interesting. ~ Alison Gopnik

I was a pretty disruptive student in class in school. I had a hard time paying attention. I had what they call A.D.D. now, back then I was just a hyper kid. ~ John Corbett

It is quite possible that an animal has spoken to me and that I didn't catch the remark because I wasn't paying attention. ~ E.B. White

It's about paying attention to the little things, the details ... Constantly rediscovering your partner, knowing there's a way out of any crisis. ~ Antonio Banderas

Princeton University recently did a study revealing what those of us paying attention already know all too well: The United States is, in scientifically proven fact, not a democracy. They concluded that the U.S. is controlled by economic elites. This is a prominent idea that is becoming popular. The structural reason that voting is redundant is that through the funding of political parties, lobbying, and cronyism, corporations are able to ensure that their interests are prioritized above the needs of the electorate and that ideas that contravene their agenda don't even make it into the sphere of public debate. Whoever you vote for, you'll be voting for a party that represents a big-business agenda, not the will of the people. ~ Russell Brand

If you ain't angry, you ain't paying attention. ~ Mumia Abu-Jamal

The most carefully crafted language in our culture tends to be poetry. And poetry at its finest moments subverts our best attempts at hiding from reality ...
The poetry of liturgy has just this power. The liturgy contains words that have been shaped and crafted over the centuries. It is formal speech. It is public poetry. As such it reaches into us to reveal not only the unnamed reality of our lives but the God who created us ...
But even when the words of the liturgy are not literally biblical words, the words, like all truthful words, work on us over time, like a steady, unrelenting stream slowly reshapes the banks of a river. The words do something to us even when we're not paying attention. ~ Mark Galli

It's the duty of all novelists, all painters, all musicians, all people who try to make art move: to look for something they feel authentically, without paying attention to styles. ~ Nathalie Sarraute

an exercise in the art of paying attention, and paying attention, Ferguson discovered, was the first step in learning how to be alive. ~ Paul Auster

if you keep focusing on everyone's journey, you're going to stop paying attention to your own. ~ Anita Papas

Luck is largely a matter of paying attention. ~ Susan M Dodd

Life makes writing poetry necessary to prove I really was paying attention. ~ Mark Strand

It is dangerous for us to allow our difficulties to reside in the forefront of our thinking. Rather, our focus should always remain on our matchless God, who can triumph over any trouble we bring to Him.

When God said no to one blessing, it was so I could experience a greater one later on.

God speaks to you and me through every situation, but hearing Him is dependent upon our anticipating and paying attention to His instruction.

Regardless of the circumstances we experience, we know God is teaching us something, and we will intentionally and eagerly learn and apply whatever it is.

There are many days when I cannot wait to get home and be alone with the Father. I am eager to leave behind all the stresses and decisions, change out of my suit and tie, go into my prayer closet, open God's Word, and relax in His loving arms. Many times I don't need to say a word. I simply want to hear from the Lord, experiencing His peaceful wisdom and loving presence. There is nothing better in life than just being with Him. ~ Charles F. Stanley

I think the business of writing a great deal of it is the business of paying attention to your characters, to the world they live in, to the story you have to tell, but just a kind of deep attention and out of that if you pay attention properly the story will tell you what it needs. ~ Salman Rushdie

There is no point in worrying about the effect [result], which has already occurred. It is worth paying attention to the facts (causes) upon which the effects [results] are based. ~ Dada Bhagwan

'The Simpsons' basically - and 'Futurama' - are really smart shows. They're kind of disguised as these goofy animated sitcoms, but the references within the shows, if you're paying attention, are pretty smart and pretty sophisticated. ~ Matt Groening

I haven't been paying attention to politics long enough to have really smart opinions. ~ Biz Stone

That's an applicable life less, my boy,' he'd said. 'Nobody is really paying attention to you. Most people don't really get this. They think they must count more to other people than other people count to them. They can't believe the disregard could truly be mutual. ~ Jennifer DuBois

Nobody is paying attention to the fact that first of all, a man has to build himself and become a personality ~ Sunday Adelaja

Some people might be surprised that 'Rambo's creator has a doctorate in American literature. One of my influences is Henry James, whose major theme is awareness. Whether I'm writing about military personnel, law enforcement, or De Quincey, the persistent theme is paying attention in a hostile world. ~ David Morrell

Investors are impatient and they are also desperate for the 'next big thing,' and they are not paying attention to the fact that the 'next big thing' can be an economic crisis that they have created by being very irresponsible with their power. ~ Carmen Busquets

Sadhana Start by paying attention to everything you think of as yourself just before you fall asleep: your thoughts, your emotions, your hair, your skin, your clothes, your makeup. Know that none of this is you. There is no need to make any conclusion about what "you" are or what "truth" is. Truth is not a conclusion. If you keep the false conclusions at bay, truth will dawn. It is like your experience of the night: the sun has not gone; it is just that the planet is looking the other way. You're thinking, reading, talking about the self, because you're too busy looking the other way! You haven't paid enough attention to know what the self really is. What is needed is not a conclusion, but a turnaround. If you manage to enter sleep with this awareness, it will be significant. Since there is no external interference in sleep, this will grow into a powerful experience. Over time, you will enter a dimension beyond all accumulations. ~ Sadhguru

Because you can't argue with all the fools in the world. It's easier to let them have their way, then trick them when they're not paying attention. ~ Christopher Paolini

When Warren Buffett says the sun shines out of somebody's backside, it's worth paying attention. ~ Guy Spier

A lot of what acting is is paying attention. ~ Robert Redford

But writers experience the world and themselves in a unique way. We look for meaning. We see it even when we are not paying attention, which is seldom because, as writers, paying attention is what we do. We are scribes to the ticking of the days, and we have a job to do. We are not at peace unless we are doing it. ~ Larry Brooks

Create sacred spaces in the workplace as well. Classrooms, five years ago, professors would say, I don't want be a nanny to my students. They can do whatever they want. Now professors are saying, put away that laptop, because studies show that it not only takes away the attention of the person who's on the laptop from the class, but everyone around them. There's like a circle around that person that's distracted and not paying attention. ~ Judy Woodruff

The mind is a strange thing: it works in secret. Oftentimes the most important decisions in life are made while you're not paying attention. ~ Nikolai Grozni

As the shape of Christianity changes and our churches adapt to a new world, we have a choice: we can drive our hearses around bemoaning every augur of death, or we can trust that the same God who raised Jesus from the dead is busy making something new. As long as Christians are breaking the bread and pouring the wine, as long as we are healing the sick and baptizing sinners, as long as we are preaching the Word and paying attention, the church lives, and Jesus said even the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. We might as well trust him, since he knows a thing or two about the way out of the grave. ~ Rachel Held Evans

To be a poet is as serious, long-term and natural as the effort to be the best human you can be. To express something well is not a question of having a top-class education and understanding poetic forms: rather, it's a question of paying attention. ~ Alice Oswald

How many times have I missed an incredible connection that could have been made because I had my face in my phone instead of paying attention to those around me? ~ Adam Braun

When I sit and talk with a person, I'm not always paying attention. I'm looking at the person and saying, 'What is it about his or her life that appeals to me?' ~ Patricia Reilly Giff

Anyone who thinks humans are not capable of so fouling their own nest that the land and the waters can no longer be productive just hasn't been paying attention. ~ Molly Ivins

It's not human nature to be great. It's human nature to survive, to be average and do what you have to do to get by. That is normal. When you have something good happen, it's the special people that can stay focused and keep paying attention to detail, working to get better and not being satisfied with what they have accomplished. ~ Nick Saban

When I heard 'Moon River', at first I thought it was just a nice song, but then I started paying attention to the words and realized this song was about Huck Finn. I just love the words, that it's kind of you and me against the world, and we're going to make it together. ~ Drew Holcomb

Brand marketers don't believe that ad-tech companies view brands as true partners. Ad-tech companies think brand marketers are paying attention to the wrong things. And publishers, with a few important exceptions, feel taken advantage of by everyone. ~ John Battelle

Quang Trung explained to Hoa that he called his band Love Like Hate because that was how he felt about Vietnam. "I love Vietnam so much I hate her. How can I not hate her when I love her so much? I am like a son who froths at the mouth because he has to watch his mother sell her pussy. She's sold her pussy to the Chinese, French, Russians and Americans, and now she's selling it to the Taiwanese. She'd sell her pussy to anyone because she feels inferior to everyone. She's thrilled to be humiliated because someone is paying attention to her. And when she's too old to sell her own pussy, she sells her daughter's pussy. That's Mother Vietnam for you! ~ Linh Dinh

Once I was asked be a seatmate on a trans-Pacific flight....what instruction he should give his fifteen-year-old daughters, who wanted to be a writer. [I said], "Tell your daughter three things." Tell her to read...Tell her to read whatever interests her, and protect her if someone declares what she's reading to be trash. No one can fathom what happens between a human being and written language. She may be paying attention to things in the words beyond anyone else's comprehension, things that feed her curiosity, her singular heart and mind. ...Second, I said, tell your daughter that she can learn a great deal about writing by reading and by studying books about grammar and the organization of ideas, but that if she wishes to write well she will have to become someone. She will have to discover her beliefs, and then speak to us from within those beliefs. If her prose doesn't come out of her belief, whatever that proves to be, she will only be passing along information, of which we are in no great need. So help her discover what she means.
Finally, I said, tell your daughter to get out of town, and help her do that. I don't necessarily mean to travel to Kazakhstan, or wherever, but to learn another language, to live with people other than her own, to separate herself from the familiar. Then, when she returns, she will be better able to understand why she loves the familiar, and will give us a fresh sense of how fortunate we are to share these things.
Read. Find out ~ Barry Lopez

As I asked more pointed questions about the choices and behaviors Wholehearted men and women made to reduce anxiety, they explained that reducing anxiety meant paying attention to how much they could do and how much was too much, and learning how to say, "Enough." They got very clear on what was important to them and when they could let something go. ~ Brene Brown

You can't bluff someone that's not paying attention. ~ Joe Mantegna

You can't seem to keep your eyes in one place. I can tell that you're paying attention, but you seem to be looking for something." I ~ Kiera Cass

Ignore what other people think. Most people aren't even paying attention to you. ~ Amy Poehler

It's cool because I think 'Ex Machina' is a little bit under the radar, which is always when I do my best work - when I feel like no one's paying attention. ~ Brian K. Vaughan

Sometimes you're the one speeding along in a panic, doing too much, not paying attention, wrecking things you don't mean to. And sometimes life just happens to you, and you can't dodge it. It crashes into you because it wants to see what you're made of. Despite how terrifying the story was to me as a kid, I still ~ Alexandra Bracken

If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention. ~ Peter Prichard

I try to pick music for a diner that doesnt involve a lot of lyrics, so you're not paying attention to that. As long as it doesnt dominate the party, it should be more atmosphere music. When I'm by myself, I never play music. ~ Amy Sedaris

I'm so proud of you. I wanted to blow you, like, eighteen times."
"I made thirty-four saves. Weren't you paying attention?"
Isaac threw his head back and laughed. "Oh my God. You made a joke."
"Who said I was joking? ~ Avon Gale

Bad things open your eyes to the good things you weren't paying attention to before. ~ N.M. Facile

People's stories are the most personal thing they have, and paying attention to those stories is just about the most important thing you can do for them. ~ William Deresiewicz

Beck finished his call. Once he was paying attention again, she pointed downward with the pipe. Peering over the edge of the building, he blinked at the sight, then grinned.
"Good job. Remind me not to piss ya off. Ya might think of usin' that on me sometime."
"So tempting," she said. Except I'd aim for your knees. Your head's too hard. ~ Jana Oliver

If we never leave our house except to drive to work, do we need to be even remotely aware of this powerful, humbling, extraordinary and eternal life force that surges and ebbs around us all the time? Apparently not. Because we have stopped paying attention. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Theater class seemed like a way to play pretend, only with everyone paying attention to me. ~ Leila Sales

Teaching isn't rocket science. It's about being engaged, listening, paying attention. Despite conventional wisdom, you don't need to talk a lot to teach well. You do need to care, though. Not so much about what people think of you or whether or not they like you, but about the kids and doing what's best for them. ~ Tucker Elliot

Sometimes Holly seemed like she wasn't paying attention, and other times she was gone when I went looking for her. That was when she went to a part of heaven we didn't share. I missed her then, but it was and odd sort of missing because by then I knew the meaning of forever.
I could not have what I wanted most: Mr. Harvey dead and me living. Heaven wasn't perfect. But I came to believe that if I watched closely, and desired, I might change the lives of those I loved on Earth. ~ Alice Sebold

I think that when you look at history and when you look at these facts that shape nations and shape countries and give us present examples of how we're supposed to live, we find more and more often that we're not paying attention to what's actually happening. ~ Immortal Technique

His eyes were hot and angry as they burned into hers. "I talked to Madison, and that's it. I didn't agree to go on a date; I didn't agree to get back together. In fact, after a certain point in the conversation, I was having a hard time even paying attention to her."

She swallowed.

"Why do you think that is, Mollie?" he asked quietly. "What do you think was distracting me?"

Oh God, why does he have to be so beautiful?

"You, Mollie," he said, pulling her closer. "You were distracting me. You were all I could think about. All I've been thinking about."

Her heart thudded. "Yeah?"

His thumb touched her lip. "You know when you texted me today? Something dumb about whether or not we needed more paper towels? Seeing your name on my cell phone did a hell of a lot more for me than my entire meeting with Madison. Are you hearing me? It was the mere sight of your name that did it for me. That's it, Mollie. Seeing your name undoes me. ~ Lauren Layne

The healthiest way I know how to move through an emotion effectively is to surrender completely to that emotion when its loop of physiology comes over me. I simply resign to the loop and let it run its course for 90 seconds. Just like children, emotions heal when they are heard and validated. Over time, the intensity and frequency of these circuits usually abate. ...Paying attention to which array of circuits we are concurrently running provides us with tremendous insight into how our minds are fundamentally wired... ~ Jill Bolte Taylor

I think there are lots of things still to be discovered. You just have to be paying attention. ~ Morgan Matson

Don't run, child! You'll never escape the two most important presences in the life of any human being: God and death. God accompanies your every step and will be annoyed because he can see that you're not paying attention to the miracle of life. Or indeed death. You just ran past a corpse and didn't even notice. ~ Paulo Coelho

But I've been paying attention for a while now, and I think there's also actual ordinary. People who never wonder if this is all there is, and have never gnashed their teeth at what a raw deal this whole thing inevitably becomes at some point or another, sooner or later. ~ Caroline Zancan

THE MISCONCEPTION: Your opinions are the result of years of rational, objective analysis. THE TRUTH: Your opinions are the result of years of paying attention to information that confirmed what you believed, while ignoring information that challenged your preconceived notions. ~ David McRaney

Now he knew ... that there was nothing so vital as paying attention, and perfecting the humble offices of love. ~ Susan Vreeland

If you are paying attention, then the day is going to be pretty joyful, and a lot of delight will fill it. ~ Greg Boyle

But that was the way time worked. Too fast when you weren't paying attention, and then slow as mud when you watched it. ~ James S.A. Corey