“I try to pay attention to language. I think that as a general rule, we as writers talk too much and we should listen more. I read my dialogue out loud to myself because I think that's when you catch the wrong notes and the wrong tones.” ThinkingTryingLanguageAttentionDialoguePay Attention Author:Don Winslow
“The so-called resistance is very broad and we don't agree on everything, but there's a moment of opportunity when people are paying attention. It's time for us to really get serious about political education and about our own moral education in this moment, and to seize this opportunity to organize and be in deep dialogue with a whole lot of people who never even thought about being politically engaged or active before. There's real hope there and real opportunity.” PeopleRealMomentsPoliticalOpportunityAttentionMoralSeriousAgreeDialoguePay AttentionOrganize Author:Michelle Alexander
“Science is now documenting that it's not the objects of meditation that are important, it's the process of paying attention to them - the attending - that actually influences the organism in a whole range of different ways. The brain changes significantly enough to impact thought, emotion, and other biological functions. Today, people recognize that they're not going to find well-being from the outside, or from a pill; they're going to find it by looking inside. All the suffering, stress, and addiction comes from not realizing you already are what you are looking for.” PeopleImportantDifferentEnoughTodaySufferingRealizingEmotionAttentionBrainMeditationInfluenceStressAddictionPay Attention Author:Jon Kabat-Zinn
“Mindfulness is about love and loving life. When you cultivate this love, it gives you clarity and compassion for life, and your actions happen in accordance with that. All ethics and morality, and a sense of interconnectedness, come out of the act of paying attention.” GivingActionAttentionCompassionMoralityMindfulnessEthicsClarityPay AttentionLoving LifeInterconnectedness Author:Jon Kabat-Zinn
“When I first became a judge on the district court, I had one lawyer who came to argue before me, and he was looking off to the side as he was talking. I started asking him questions, and all of a sudden he whipped around and looked at me intently. I could see in his eyes that he had finally figured out, "This is no dummy, I'd better pay attention." It is satisfying to see that.” EyeAttentionJudgingLawyerArguingPay AttentionDummy Author:Sonia Sotomayor
“Unless we are holding ourselves accountable day in, day out, not just when there's a crisis for folks who have power and influence and can hire lobbyists, but for the nurse, the teacher, the police officer, who, frankly, at the end of each month, they've got a little financial crisis going on. They're having to take out extra debt just to make their mortgage payments. We haven't been paying attention to them. And if you look at our tax policies in America, it's a classic example.” AttentionTeacherInfluencePolicyTaxesPoliceCrisisFinancialPay AttentionClassicExtrasNurseMortgagePolice OfficerFinancial Crisis Author:Barack Obama
“I think women in Iran are very resilient and I am very proud of all the Iranian women that are standing up for their rights and speaking out, and I hope that they will succeed and I am glad the international community is paying attention and supporting them as well.” ThinkingCommunityAttentionProudSucceedGladPay AttentionResilientIranianSpeaking Out Author:Anousheh Ansari
“Campaigns and elections are not a game. They're not a game. They're about trying to change America. We're the wealthiest country in the history of the world. We should not be having Flint, Michigan, or African-American communities all over this country where schools are failing. Those are the issue we got to pay attention to and not at this as come kind of silly game. And that is the critique that bothers me. That's what bothers me about media coverage.” WorldTryingKindCountrySchoolCommunityAttentionFailingElectionSillyPay AttentionBotherWorld HistoryCritiqueTrying To Change Author:Bernie Sanders
“I think that it's incredibly important that we're actually paying attention to the feminism that's going on on the ground in different countries and see what we can do to support the work that's already going on, as opposed to kind of assuming that we know best for women in other areas.” ThinkingKindImportantDifferentCountryAttentionSupportFeminismAssumingPay Attention Author:Jessica Valenti
“The comic-book industry today is not what it was back then, unfortunately. Kids are no longer interested in reading comic books; they've got television and the electronic games that they can bury themselves in like ostriches. They don't have to pay attention to what's going on in the world around them.” WorldBookKidsTodayReadingAttentionComicPay AttentionComic Book Author:Al Feldstein
“Nirvana really touched me as a teenager and started making me pay attention to music as a participatory thing that I could do. Music that you want to throw your body into it - that's a feeling that I'm not quite satisfied with having made yet.” FeelingsAttentionTeenagerPay Attention Author:Phil Elvrum
“The best piece of advice I ever had was from my sister who told me to get a dog. I have four now and they have changed my life. Having dogs makes you into a less selfish person. You have to pay attention to these other beings and they become your best friends and brighten up everything in your life - they force you out of the door in the morning, because you have to take them for walks.” AttentionMorningAdviceDogChangedSelfishPay AttentionMy SisterChanged My LifeYour Best Friend Author:Rebecca Romijn
“I think I've always had an activist stance, yet at the same time, the other side of me - and this is where some people just don't get it, or they'd prefer it if the work was a lot uglier, a lot louder - I have this personality where I just want to put something out that's a fact and then let you interpret it. It's almost as if you might barely notice it, you might walk right by it, but you have to pay attention.” PeopleThinkingAttentionPersonalityPay AttentionActivist Author:Maya Lin
“I don't pay attention to things like the talent for style. I don't meditate on things like that. I just do whatever I think I should do and go with it, and if people like it, then I'm very happy about it. And if not, I always figure it's their problem not mine.” PeopleThinkingProblemAttentionTalentStylePay AttentionVery Happy Author:Iris Apfel
“I'm always amazed that anyone is paying attention to anything that I do, you know what I mean? I feel like I'm constantly having conversations with people where they're saying, "I didn't know that you could be serious," and then other people are saying, "Oh, I didn't know that you could do comedy." And so I don't know if it really helped too much with this. I like to think that it does.” PeopleThinkingMeanAttentionComedySeriousPay AttentionAmazed Author:Colin Hanks
“I don't think we can understand who we are without illuminating the steps that led us here. And I like to remind people we have a really good knowledge base if we would just pay attention to what's already there - it keeps us from being too arrogant.” PeopleThinkingAttentionPay AttentionArrogant Author:Deborah Blum
“I think at one point, a whole new younger generation of critics come in and they're really aware of zeitgeist in their group, and the older artists tend to get forgotten as their critics retire and do other things or stop paying attention. So there's a factor of aging that I think is to be considered, too. As a middle-aged artist, you kind of get put on a shelf for the young ones.” ThinkingKindArtistAttentionAgingCriticsForgottenPay AttentionRetiringYounger GenerationZeitgeistYoung Ones Author:Michael C. McMillen
“Tech companies like to set stretch goals, like we'll try to be the best company for women and minorities, and we have to ask, "What does that really mean?" By setting a goal like that, it makes all of us pay attention to that idea and try to innovate around it, to understand the underpinnings. One piece is being transparent, saying "Hey, we have an issue, we're open to innovation on it." It's important for innovation to prove that more diversity makes better products.” TryingMeanImportantGoalAttentionProveDiversityInnovationPay AttentionBeing The BestReally MeanOne Piece Author:Megan Smith
“Different reactions while film test screening doesn't mean even the audience thinks ambiguity is a bad thing. But if you're asking them right away to start checking things off, they don't know what to do. I think at their best, it applies to when the audience knows what it is. Then, when they say, "Oh, well, I thought it was too boring in blah-blah-blah part," then you better pay attention to it. It's like going for the hamburger. Better be the good hamburger I went for.” ThinkingMeanDifferentFilmAttentionAudienceBoringPay AttentionAmbiguityOh Well Author:Barry Levinson
“Every time I have people over, I watch how long they look at every part of the painting, or pictures on my computer. I have a few close friends and people that are constants. Whether I like their opinion or not, I've been hearing it for a long time and I can use it as this constant. I mentally pay attention to how long they look at every image, which ones they pause on and what parts of it they look at.” PeopleLongAttentionOpinionPaintingComputerPay AttentionClose Friends Author:Damian Loeb
“Steven Spielberg has this great quote: "Moviemaking is always about noise. There's so many voices that you've gotta listen to. But you've always got to pay attention to the one voice that's in your gut that always tells you it's still not good enough."” EnoughAttentionPay AttentionGutsGood EnoughNot Good Enough Author:Dwayne Johnson
“We found ourselves becoming more serious about playing music than our friends were - or just more committed and had more meaningful connections. I realized then that I would probably be playing in bands for the rest of my life; that that's what made me happy. Even though it's awesome that people are paying attention - buying records or selling shows out - I never have that conscious thought about, "this is going to be the band that will tour the world."” PeopleWorldAttentionSeriousConsciousCommittedI RealizedMeaningfulSellingPay Attention Author:Mikal Cronin
“There were times where I felt I was pressing a little bit too hard with the humor, and I had to pull back, because the overriding concern of the book was to create this disease that had no cure and make you pay attention to every emotional stage of what happens.” BookAttentionEmotionalConcernPay Attention Author:Joshua Ferris
“One of the things that makes me the most nervous is that the Middle East has historically had a sense of predictability. You may have a terrorist incident or you may have a revisionist regime like the Iranians, but on the whole, the region is twenty countries. On the whole, you go to bed and you wake up and you have a pretty good idea that most of those twenty are doing just fine, you don't have to pay attention to them. There's some stuff going on but you don't have to worry about a governmental overthrow that will suddenly force you to evacuate your embassies.” CountryAttentionWorryWake UpTerroristNervousPay AttentionPredictability Author:Ilan Berman
“I'm ready for all forms of dialogue about the film The Conquest. There will be a lot of political talk, but I don't think the film itself will be scandalous. For the French, there are so many emotions relating to Sarkozy and politicians in general that I think the film will generate a lot of passion, whether it be negative or positive. Above all, it's a fictional film. It was important not to make a documentary and to really pay attention to the images. From the choice of the actors to the mise en scene, the film is completely cinematographic. It's not just a boring political movie.” ThinkingImportantFilmPoliticalChoicesPassionEmotionAttentionPoliticianSceneNegativeBoringDialoguePay AttentionConquest Author:Xavier Durringer
“Politics, in my judgment, has become not just the means to a policy ends, but it's become the end itself. Politics has become the sport that we all watch, and we all pay attention to.” MeanSportsAttentionPolicyJudgmentPay Attention Author:Jeh Johnson
“Generally, I don't want to do things. I feel lazy and unmotivated. It's only when an idea grabs hold of me and I can't get rid of it, when I try not to think about it and yet it's ambushing me all the time. I'm thrown up against a wall. The idea is saying to me, "You have to pay attention to me because I am going to be the future of your life for the next year or two or five." Then I submit. I get into it. It's something that becomes so necessary to me that I can't live without doing that project.” ThinkingTryingAttentionWallPay AttentionLazySubmit Author:Paul Auster
“I'm so immersed in my little world that I don't often sit back and pay attention to what's going on around me. It truly stuns me when people recognize me. Obviously, I'm not a film star, but even at a design exhibition or art exhibition, if someone comes up to me, I'm sort of taken aback. I don't think of myself like that. But if I can have an effect on young designers, that's great - particularly young designers coming from Australia. Europeans grew up with design. The rest of us lived on tidbits of information.” PeopleThinkingWorldArtFilmAttentionTakenDesignPay AttentionDesigner Author:Marc Newson
“I try to avoid giving advice. The only advice I will give is to pay attention. I don't mean to the screen in your hand. I'm talking about the natural world. I spent a lot of time educating my children about nature by putting them in nature. I said, "I want you to listen; I want you to look." There's so much technology coming into our lives that takes us away from the natural stuff, so I'm pushing the other way.” WorldGivingTryingMeanChildrenNaturalAttentionTechnologyAdvicePay AttentionMy ChildrenI Want YouNatural WorldGiving Advice Author:Robert Redford
“I tried too much and too hard to get people to pay attention to what I was doing, and so paying less attention to what I actually wanted to do. It's something you see a lot with very young bands who are desperate to get a record deal so they're trying to sound like something else.” PeopleTryingAttentionPay AttentionDesperate Author:SOHN
“The fact is that there's hundreds of thousands of incredibly motivated, active political partisans working on the blogs. These people generate buzz, it generates local activism. These aren't the kind of people that pay attention a little to politics, turn it off and then do something else. They live and breathe politics. And anybody that wants to build a movement or a successful campaign needs people like the people who read blogs.” PeopleKindPoliticalAttentionSuccessfulBreatheActivismPay AttentionMotivated Author:Markos Moulitsas
“The rhyme always knows better than you, and leads you to places where you wouldn't otherwise have gotten to and that is absolutely the case. Leading off from formal poetry, there is something about when you pay attention to form and you allow it to have its own laws and you listen to those laws you really do end up in places you wouldn't otherwise go. Which isn't to say that I believe in following the rules when I write. I don't. Each of the forms in my books feels to me new.” WritingBelieveBookI BelieveAttentionPay AttentionRhyme Author:Nicole Krauss
“One of the things I've learned over the years is that you only do what you can do as an actor. You do the best job you can, but you have no control over so many elements that are going to determine the outcome of that film. I never pay attention to what happens after.” FilmAttentionDeterminePay Attention Author:Matt Dillon
“If you want reach fans on-line definitely pay attention to things like hashtags and to what's trending at the moment. Try to connect to what's hot and to reach out to and to follow the right people. You never know who might re-tweet you and help you get some more followers.” PeopleTryingMomentsHelpingAttentionHotPay AttentionReach Out Author:Christina Milian
“Just too much fast thinking all the time. I think of so many things all at once, it gets exhausting. You start seeing all of these connections around you . . . Everything is connected, composed, coordinated, choreographed. If you start paying attention to these connections, it can drive you insane. And that's why making work is so good, because that's when I'm not thinking, just making.” ThinkingAttentionInsanePay Attention Author:Rita Ackermann
“It's true that there are younger people making films, and there are different kinds of films. This has created some attention in what's coming out of Greece, and people like to find a way to name this new ethnic cinema. It's not like there's a movement, or a common philosophy in making these films. They're just things that happened, and now people are paying attention to it.” PeopleKindDifferentPhilosophyFilmCommonAttentionPay AttentionDifferent KindsGreece Author:Yorgos Lanthimos
“Perception, after all, is not simply a matter of what you believe about yourself, it all encompasses what others think about you, and what has been thought of you historically. I say we can pay attention to those other dimensions of our identity - class, gender, sexual orientation, geographical region - while at the same time understanding how our historically produced racial identity continues to serve, or undercut us.” ThinkingBelieveUnderstandingAttentionIdentityPerceptionGenderPay AttentionAbout Yourself Author:Michael Eric Dyson
“The most important thing you can do individually and organizationally is to pay attention to your own creativity. Sports psychologists call this muscle memory or paying attention to your perfect performance. In your own life you can notice when you do something that works right for you and celebrate it. The more you do this, the greater the probability that you will act creatively in future situations.” ImportantSportsMemoriesPerfectAttentionSituationCreativityCelebratePay AttentionProbabilityPsychologist Author:Michael Ray
“How do I stay confident? I just look at my accomplishments that I've made so far. It's a very conceited thing to say, of course, but I just look at everything I've done and all the fans that write letters to me. Sometimes I even look at the good YouTube comments and really pay attentions to them. I've inspired a lot of kids, and it's not every day you get to hear about that when you have this kind of career.” WritingKindSometimesDoneKidsAttentionInspiredPay AttentionAccomplishmentCommentConceited Author:D-Pryde
“Do I think that people should in the best of all possible worlds have to go to jail for wanting the US government to pay attention to the warnings of scientists about climate change? Not really. I mean, in a rational world, if all the scientists said, "The worst thing that ever happened is about to happen and here's what you should do to stop it," you would expect any rational system to say, "Oh, sure, OK, let's do something about it." But that's not the world we live in. In the world we live in, you do need people willing to stand up, fight, march and sometimes go to jail.” PeopleThinkingWorldMeanSometimesFightingAttentionWorstScientistClimate ChangeRationalPay AttentionMarch Author:Bill McKibben
“The latest thing that has caught me by surprise is Maryanne Amacher. I like sound that affects the listener physically. Traits such as complexity or simplicity don't really become a factor then. It's just the sound that I pay attention to.” AttentionSurpriseSimplicityPay AttentionComplexityTraits Author:Kevin Drumm
“The 80s and 90s were the beginning of the hollowing out of the American little democracy. It started with Reagan and went to Bill NAFTA Clinton! Hey, but who's paying attention to history!? What's stunning is how many people think Trump is the beginning of fascism. He's the result of many, many years of corporate plunder and spineless Democrats and greedy, racist Republicans. The concentration of wealth, the monopolized media, basically a march toward a fractured Republic. We are broken!” PeopleThinkingWealthAttentionDemocracyBrokenRepublicanClintonDemocratPay AttentionConcentrationRacistMarchFascismGreedyStunning Author:Eddie Pepitone
“I'm trying to make sure that the visual connections between the disparate elements are strong enough for the viewer to keep moving through the work. It's in paying attention to those hundreds of details that the flow of the line will guide an audience through the narrative in a way that will make them enter it enough to engage with it, and perhaps construct their own narrative.” TryingEnoughMovingStrongAttentionAudiencePay AttentionStrong EnoughKeep Moving Author:Chitra Ganesh
“I try to just pay attention to what I'm feeling. If something is scary to me, then that's sometimes a good sign - although, sometimes it's not.” TryingSometimesFeelingsAttentionScaryPay Attention Author:Winona Ryder
“It seems to me that large numbers of people are now paying attention to poverty and that large numbers now understand that blaming the poor and the insecure for being poor and insecure is as unseemly as is schoolyard bullying. In that realization lies hope for a reinvigorated discourse around poverty and inequity in modern-day America.” PeopleLyingPoorAttentionPovertyBlameRealizationPay AttentionBullyingInsecure Author:Sasha Abramsky
“You kind of notice what's going on in your body, and you can kind of feel a certain tightening, or fear, which is something that, as an artist, I've kind of befriended. I can pretty much count on it for anything that I engage in - that thing like, "Am I going to be able to pull this off?" Well, what am I gonna do with this feeling? The more nervous you get, the more worried you get about it. So you pay attention to what you might need.” KindFeelingsArtistAttentionNervousWorriedPay Attention Author:Jeff Bridges
“I'm not much of a self-promoter or anything. It's not something I feel comfortable doing. But sometimes I would get frustrated, I'd think, "You know, this is a good book, how come no one is paying attention to it?" So it's nice to have some recognition. I don't write to put it in a drawer, I hope that people see it. But what am I willing to do for that? I struggle with that a little bit. I try to be accommodating, but I'm pretty much a loner. I'll say this, and it'll sound like bullshit, but it's not: I don't really pay attention to this stuff very much.” PeopleThinkingWritingTryingBookSometimesAttentionStruggleNiceRecognitionPay AttentionFrustratedBullshitGood BookLoner Author:Paul Beatty
“When you hear the ex-politician tell you that the reason they created the War on Drugs was to get black people and to get hippies...that to me is just as shitty as saying all Mexicans are murderers and rapists. Or all Muslims. That's what I'm paying attention to. And everybody is hedging their bets when it comes to marijuana. The government is sitting on this lie saying it's a gateway drug.” PeopleWarReasonLyingBlackAttentionDrugPay AttentionBlack PeopleMarijuanaMurdererHippieWar On Drugs Author:Whoopi Goldberg
“In cinema we have all kinds of ways of communicating: cinematography, lighting, character performance. If you pay attention to silent era movie actors, they are big about postures and really exaggerated expressions so you can understand how they feel. We use all kinds of techniques from cinema to help communicate emotion.” KindCharacterHelpingEmotionAttentionSilentCommunicateAll KindsPay AttentionCinematography Author:Jenova Chen
“There's no reason to tweet when you are in the midst of a great moment; they are few and far between. So pay attention to it, as you probably won't see it again. You can always tweet later, if you're lucky enough to be part of history and you think 140 characters can do credit to someone like Martin Luther King or to the speech he made that day.” ThinkingReasonEnoughMomentsCharacterAttentionLuckyPay AttentionLutherTweetGreat Moments140 Character Author:Lewis Black