Top 100 Quotes About Not Paying Attention
#1. Far more gardens fail because the gardener is absent or not paying attention than because he or she lacks erudition. Yes, you need to know your ABCs [the basics], but the more you garden, the more you'll learn what works and what doesn't.
Barbara Damrosch
#2. My experience of test screenings is that you don't know what kind of mood people are going to be in, and sometimes the studios accept what Joe Blo says - and this guy could just be a frustrated filmmaker, or not paying attention.
Antoine Fuqua
#3. 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
#4. So what am I? I guess I would call myself a sober optimist ... If you are not sober about the scale of the challenge, then you are not paying attention. But if you are not an optimist, you have no chance of generating the kind of mass movement needed to achieve the needed scale.
Thomas L. Friedman
#5. How much are we willing to lose from our already short lives by losing ourselves in our Blackberries, our iPhones, by not paying attention to the human being across from us who is talking with us, by being so lazy that we're not willing to process deeply?
Joshua Foer
#6. He looks at you a lot. When you're not paying attention. He looks at you, to see if you're having a good time.
Jenny Han
#7. When I am not paying attention to my children, they appear to desperately need it. When I am giving them my full attention, they seem just as happy to play by themselves. It is as though they need to be certain of my attention in order to play their own games and ignore me.
Sarah Ruhl
#8. Acting is reacting. You can't react if you're not paying attention, if you're not listening.
Reid Scott
#9. If you're not nervous then you're not paying attention.
Miles Davis
#10. The act of living had been enjoyable; at some point when I was not paying attention, it had turned into a different sort of experience, to whose grimness I had grown so accustomed that I now took it for granted.
Paul Bowles
#11. If you never make mistakes, you're not trying hard enough.
If you make the same mistakes more than once, you're not paying attention.
Ben Delaney
#12. Young people realize that something is amiss. There's a generation that fell in love with their phones, and it's very hard for them to see that there's a problem. But young people are desperate for the attention of their parents, who are really not paying attention to them.
Judy Woodruff
#13. One thing I've learned about vampires
they keep pulling new rabbits out of their cloaks. Big, fanged, carnivorous bunnies that'll eat your eyeballs if you're not paying attention.
Laurell K. Hamilton
#14. I see people who talk about America, and then undermine it by not paying attention to its soul, to its poetry. I see polarization, reductionism and superficiality.
Azar Nafisi
#15. If it didn't happen in your life before, then you're not paying attention you don't think it's possible. But almost all important events never happen in your life before.
Ray Dalio
#17. 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
#18. 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
#19. Perpetual optimism is annoying. It is a sign that you are not paying attention.
Maureen Dowd
#20. If you have time to judge another person's life, you're not paying attention to yours.
Ginn Pascale
#21. Not paying attention keeps us in an endless cycle of wanting.
Sharon Salzberg
#22. see, when I'm not paying attention to my barriers, I can glimpse other people's thoughts. I catch them like lingering aftertastes or smells they leave in their wake: bitter envy, coppery anger, sour regret, the foul miasma of malice and cruelty.
Jason Heller
#23. 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
#24. That's one of the surprises in the research, that's it's not young people who are smitten with their phones. It's their parents who are not paying attention to them.
Judy Woodruff
#25. Did you miss my job description? Or were you just not paying attention the day I busted heads on Olympus? Fucking with you people is what I do. It's what I live for and I'm really tired of you now. (ZT)
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#26. If you have this idea that the earth is only 6,000 years old, you are denying, if you will, everything that you can touch and see. You're not paying attention to what's happening in the universe around you.
Bill Nye
#27. Our lives are the sum of our memories. How much are we willing to lose from our already short lives by ... not paying attention?
Joshua Foer
#28. If you are not confused then you are not paying attention.
Tom Peters
#29. The only time that any of us have to grow or change or feel or learn anything is in the present moment. But we're continually missing our present moments, almost willfully, by not paying attention.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
#30. You've got your entourage and people that help you make whatever happen around you. Everything's crazy and you're not paying attention to your inner feelings because you're so busy. I couldn't take it.
Lenny Kravitz
#31. When you have a lot of opportunities, which I am blessed to have had in terms of my work, you get into the habit of not paying attention to certain specifics. And as we get busy, anything we do is the same thing.
Jake Gyllenhaal
#32. If you're not pissed off with the World, you're just not paying attention.
Kasey Chambers
#33. It's important to know that the vast majority of people who were excited in 2008 are still really enthusiastic. We've got more volunteers now than ever, and they're engaged, they're motivated, they're not paying attention to the ups and downs of polls or Washington.
Barack Obama
#34. 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
#35. We're not paying attention to the fact that Hillary Clinton is running in 2006. Everyone is looking to her for the future. It's the same with anybody else who's positioning themselves.
Gwen Ifill
#36. If you're not drunk and half naked by this point, you're not paying attention.
Chuck Palahniuk
#37. We've all seen the mom who devotes all her time and attention to her child and is so hungry for adult interaction that as soon as she's around another adult, she's not paying attention anymore.
Cynthia Nixon
#38. If you're not confused, you're not paying attention.
Tom Peters
#39. If you think I don't spend a good percentage of every day trying to figure you out, you're not paying attention.
Sylvia Day
#40. I was not paying attention during physics in high school; I was wondering if I was going to be cast in 'Pippin.'
John Benjamin Hickey
#41. I was very chatty and talkative and always getting sent out of class for talking too much and not paying attention, passing notes.
Lucy Punch
#42. Real Revolution Starts At Learning, If You're Not Angry, Then You Are Not Paying Attention.
Tim McIlrath
#43. If you have any questions for Jesus Christ it is only because you were not paying attention when he said "It is finished; I died for you on the cross." John 19:30.
Felix Wantang
#44. You don't forget you have Parkinson's disease, believe me, especially in the shower. If you are not paying attention, you fall down.
Linda Ronstadt
#45. We are living in a moment where we have broken the equilibrium of the planet. We are not paying attention to our intuitive side. We only pay attention to our reason. We have become an urban animal
Sebastiao Salgado
#46. The saddest part about being human is not paying attention. Presence is the gift of life.
Stephen Levine
#47. You can't bluff someone that's not paying attention.
Joe Mantegna
#48. Most men are not alert, not paying attention, and not watching out for their families as God commands them to.
James MacDonald
#49. We're going to sing about things that matter to us. The balancing act is to present these ideas but also make the music exciting and sort of fun enough that even if you're not paying attention to the lyrics, you might still like the songs anyway. That's the idea.
Conor Oberst
#50. Love comes in seemingly insignificant moments and if you're not paying attention, you might miss them.
Roxanne Snopek
#51. A lot of actors on film sets ... very often they're not paying attention to the physical world around them. I think through studying art, I've always had that awareness and that's something that I've wanted to bring in to go beyond acting ... As a form of expression, they are intrinsically linked.
Andy Serkis
#52. By not paying attention to your body, you are putting it in the same predicament as a neglected child. How can a child be expected to develop normally if the parents pay no attention, if they ignore its cries for help, and remain indifferent to whether their child is happy or unhappy?
Deepak Chopra
#53. 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
#54. The crazy part of my mind is like a mischievous pet I have to keep watch over or it might behave badly while I'm not paying attention.
Margaret Sartor
#55. If you're not smart enough to know what Fidel meant during the Cuban revolution, that - when they were on the Granma - Fidel was already a rock star in Cuba, and how important that was to the indigenous population, then you're not paying attention.
Steven Soderbergh
#57. 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
#58. 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
#59. Maybe the ability to confer attention to another person was not simply common courtesy, but was the fundamental act of humanity. When it came down to it, all we ever really have to give each other is our attention. Wasn't that what love was? Paying selfless attention?
Carolyn Jourdan
#60. Linc?"
"Yeah."
"About the other thing my dad said to you," I cringed.
"What else is he supposed to think?" he asked, a smile in his tone. "You're over here all the time. If not training, we're hanging out. I'm surprised he hasn't warned me off sooner. It's good to see he's paying attention.
Jessica Shirvington
#61. I'm a free soul who hates paying attention to things I am not interested in. Consequently, I have rarely been comfortable in the role of 'employee.'
Steven Solomon
#62. The Guild focuses on the ones paying attention to pussy," Ristan remarked crudely. "If we were all dead-set on bedding your women, would you not take offense?
Amelia Hutchins
#63. Kids are flat-out freaking hilarious if you are paying attention. Not just my kid, but every kid.
Dan Alatorre
#64. 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
#65. I'm not going to complain about the fact that people are paying attention to my work. I suppose that wouldn't be fair.
Frank Miller
#66. There's something odd about working 24/7, being consumed with everything that's happening in Iraq, and then coming back to the country that ordered you over there only to realize that a lot of Americans are not really paying attention.
Phil Klay
#67. I've been accused of not really paying attention to a sentence unless my name comes up in it twice.
Matthew Perry
#68. Sometimes when you live with one man for more than half your life, you stop really seeing him. Not stop loving him. That center-of-my-heart kind of love doesn't go away. But really paying attention gets submerged in the stupid details of day to day life.
Kaje Harper
#69. In terms of Cube I think he's very conscious of the technical aspect of the business whereas when you're just hired as an actor, you're not really secure in that part of your work and you're not really paying attention to where the camera.
Nia Long
#70. Never stop paying attention to things. Never make your mind up finally. Do not hold beliefs.
A.S. Byatt
#71. I'm not doubtful that I am doing what I should be doing - writing for theater - and that I'm doing it in a way no one else does it. Whether anyone else is paying attention or anyone else cares, I'm still ambivalent about that. It's still an open question.
Jason Robert Brown
#72. 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
#73. Fake flattery or not, his words spiked my system with happy. Behold, the power of a guy paying attention to a girl.
Jenny B. Jones
#74. You may not have any extra talent, but maybe you are just paying more attention to what you are doing.
Alan Shepard
#75. Sometimes, people can go missing right before our very eyes.Sometimes, people can discover you, even though they've been looking at you the entire time. Sometimes, we lose sight of ourselves when we're not paying enough attention.
Cecelia Ahern
#76. You see? You're not paying close enough attention. Theseus fought for his life," He shook his head. "But the minotaur, he fought for Ariadne.
Sarah MacLean
#77. I know how you feel. I've been analyzed to death as well. Not, like, professionally, though I did date a psych major who said I had attention issues. Or at least that's what I think he said. I wasn't really paying attention. Anyway, where was I?
Darynda Jones
#78. Look, I want to be able to make the stupidest movies ever, because they make people laugh and they make money. But that's not all I want to do. And I think I've proven to some people - the ones paying attention - that I can do more. Everybody else, well, they can wait and see and make up their mind.
Marlon Wayans
#79. Listening is more than just being quiet for a moment. It's not just the pause we were talking about earlier. Listening includes paying attention to the whole person, and especially their emotions.
Karen Ehman
#80. Montalbano and Valente seemed not to have heard him, looking as if their minds were elsewhere. But in fact they were paying very close attention, like cats that, keeping their eyes closed as if asleep, are actually counting the stars.
Andrea Camilleri
#81. It's all a matter of paying attention, being awake in the present moment, and not expecting a huge payoff. The magic in this world seems to work in whispers and small kindnesses.
Charles De Lint
#82. 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
#83. I have found in the past that what passes for coincidence is usually life's way of telling you that you're not paying enough attention.
John Connolly
#84. I encourage everyone to know that God has a plan for their life and that God never makes a mistake even though it seems like He is not listening or paying attention sometimes.
Nick Vujicic
#85. In the seventies, a group of American artists seized the means not of production but of reproduction. They tore apart visual culture at a time of no money, no market, and no one paying attention except other artists. Vietnam and Watergate had happened; everything in America was being questioned.
Jerry Saltz
#86. When you're so close to material, it would be as if you had come out of a bad marriage. You would be so close to it that you would be paying attention to detail that may not mean a whole lot for the reader.
Tim O'Brien
#87. It's not accidental that products get worse over time; it's because companies stop paying attention to them. They stop caring as much about maintaining the same quality they did when they were just trying to fight for survival and no one would pay attention unless they had the best technology.
Aaron Levie
#88. 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
#89. The act of looking is brave. Especially if you look at things you can't handle. I think that most people do not look. If you're really paying attention you could have your heart broken twelve times a day. Most of the time we aren't looking.
Laurel Nakadate
#90. That what?" "That I knew i misjudged you. That you love him. I'm not saying In what way. Maybe you don't know yourself. But anyone paying attention could see how much you care about him," he says gently.
Suzanne Collins
#91. Mindfulness is often spoken of as the heart of Buddhist meditation. It's not about Buddhism, but about paying attention. That's what all meditation is, no matter what tradition or particular technique is used.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
#92. I've written a lot of books in my time, and to write a book about Joe McCarthy and have some of the major media paying attention, I'm not used to that.
M. Stanton Evans
#93. Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind.
Their leaves are telling secrets. Their bark sings songs of olden days as it grows around the trunks. And their roots give names to all things.
Their language has been lost.
But not the gestures.
Vera Nazarian
#94. The image foreigners have of French cuisine is fattening and very fancy food. But it's not true - French food isn't just rich. The word "healthy" doesn't exist in French. We have many, many words, but not that one. To me, healthy means paying close attention to feeding people.
Alain Ducasse
#95. You'll never get that freedom back again once people start paying you attention, and especially not once they start paying you money.
Austin Kleon
#96. So you have been paying attention."
"I'm not as stupid as you think I am."
"You have no idea how stupid I think you are, and honestly, we don't have time for that conversation."
Hadrian scowled.
Michael J. Sullivan
#97. 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
#98. 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
#99. you have not been / paying attention
Thom Yorke
#100. Usually during the regular season, if you're starting pitcher, you're kind of walking back and forth from the clubhouse to the dugout and not really paying attention to what's going on.
Jon Lester
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