#attention

In a variation on James's recipe for interesting experience--the familiar leavened by the novel--Hobbs's "art of choosing difficulties" requires selecting projects that are "just manageable." If an activity is too easy, you lose focus and get bored. If it's too hard, you become anxious, overwhelmed, and unable to concentrate. Tellingly, one group is distinguished by its zeal for the kind of work that requires you to give it all you've got: high achievers particularly relish taking on risky projects that have only a 50/50 chance of success. ↗

— Winifred Gallagher

#attention #focus #art

What is the effect of unlimited coinage of silver in this country? and I invite your attention to this particularly, because it is a question of vital importance. ↗

— Richard Parks Bland

#because #country #effect #i #importance

At 6:30, which was when the national news began, my father raised the volume and adjusted the antennas. Usually I occupied myself with a book, but that night my father insisted that I pay attention. ↗

— Jhumoa Lahiri

#attention #began #book #father #i

I think there was a sense that the impact was being lost because the audience was so familiar with the form. You combine that with people's attention spans, which are clearly conditioned to be shorter now, and there's a need to vary the paradigm. ↗

— Jim Lampley

#attention spans #audience #because #being #clearly

I wish the press were paying more attention to the erosion of the Constitution and the slippery slope that we're getting into, by giving up the right of the Congress to talk about when and how and where we go to war. ↗

— Barbara Lee

#attention #congress #constitution #erosion #getting

People keep pushing me to be the center of attention... I would prefer to be on the sidelines, because that's where you see more. ↗

— Gong Li

#because #center #i #keep #me

Often the magical elements in my books are standing in for elements of the real world, the small and magical-in-their-own-right sorts of things that we take for granted and no longer pay attention to, like the bonds of friendship that entwine our own lives with those of other people and places. ↗

— Charles de Lint

#bonds #books #elements #friendship #granted

The most attention I get is in a book store or video shop when I go to the foreign film section. Sometimes that can be fun, but usually those women want to talk about philosophy or something very dense. It's not like they're tearing off my shirt, you know. ↗

— Tobey Maguire

#attention #book #dense #film #foreign

I think in any writing you're paying attention to detail. ↗

— Peter Matthiessen

#attention #detail #i #i think #paying

I'm very lucky that I get to make a living out of acting, which is what I love, and the level of attention I receive has sometimes been my own fault and sometimes not been. ↗

— Sienna Miller

#attention #been #fault #get #i