Quotes by American Authors - Page 299

When something small loudly demands all our attention, its noise often drowns out the whisper of what's enormously important.
Craig Groeschel
We've already seen the attention merchant's basic modus operandi: draw attention with apparently free stuff and then resell it. but a consequence of that model is a total dependence on gaining and holding attention. This means that under competition, the race will naturally run to the bottom; attention will almost invariably gravitate to the more garish, lurid, outrageous alternative, whatever stimulus may more likely engage what cognitive scientists call our ''automatic'' attention as opposed to our ''controlled'' attention, the kind we direct with intent. The race to a bottomless bottom, appealing to what one might call the audience's baser instincts, poses a fundamental, continual dilemma for the attention merchant-just how far will he go to get his harvest? If the history of attention capture teaches us anything, it is that the limits are often theoretical, and when real, rarely self-imposed.
Tim Wu
We’re only here for a short while. And I think it’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention.
Mark Strand
It is no coincidence that ours is a time afflicted by a widespread sense of attentional crisis, at least in the West - one captured by the phrase ''homo distractus,'' a species of ever shorter attention span known for compulsively checking his devices.
Tim Wu
That's the thing, though. You always think you want to be noticed. Until you are
Sarah Dessen
Narcissists are consumed with maintaining a shallow false self to others. They're emotionally crippled souls that are addicted to attention. Because of this they use a multitude of games, in order to receive adoration. Sadly, they are the most ungodly of God's creations because they don't show remorse for their actions, take steps to make amends or have empathy for others. They are morally bankrupt.
Shannon L. Alder
The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.
Keanu Reeves
All bad behavior is really a request for love, attention, or validation.
Kimberly Giles
I cook to inspire my husband to pay attention to me.
Sonia Rumzi
The most basic way to get someone's attention is this: Break a pattern.
Chip Heath
People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state--it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle.... Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.Source: The Wisdom of Heschel
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Cabel gives her a quizzical look. "I am totally not getting enough attention here.
Lisa McMann
All night my heart makes its wayhowever it can over the rough groundof uncertainties, but only until nightmeets and then is overwhelmed bymorning, the light deepening, thewind easing and just waiting, as Itoo wait (and when have I ever beendisappointed?) for redbird to sing
Mary Oliver
The way to get a man interested and to hold his interest was to talk about himself, and then gradually lead the conversation around yourself—and keep it there.
Margaret Mitchell
There are so many attention whores out there, prostituting for people's acknowledgment
Jason Myers
The greatest gift you can give anyone is your undivided attention...
Will Schwalbe
Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.
Susan Sontag
She was only half Bird now, and the other half song. She liked it that way.
Katherine Catmull
In the half light of morning, in a world between the sheets I swear I saw her angel wing, my vision was completefrom TIGHTROPE - Stone Roses
Matt Squire
Her voice was caught in the shell of my ear, as if it were the ocean.
Jodi Picoult
Displaced Person’s SongIf you see a train this evening,Far away, against the sky,Lie down in your woolen blanket,Sleep and let the train go by.Trains have called us, every midnight,From a thousand miles away,Trains that pass through empty cities,Trains that have no place to stay.No one drives the locomotive,No one tends the staring light,Trains have never needed riders,Trains belong to bitter night.Railway stations stand deserted,Rights-of-way lie clear and cold,What we left them, trains inherit,Trains go on, and we grow old.Let them cry like cheated lovers,Let their cries find only wind,Trains are meant for night and ruin,And we are meant for song and sin.
Thomas Pynchon
The bird music sank into her, like a song you used to know but forgot long ago. You hear a piano play it some day, and for a minute you feel a happy pain, but you don't know why. Bird felt like that.
Katherine Catmull
Pick a star on the dark horizon and follow the light.
Regina Spektor
Maybe the reason why all the doors are closed so you could open one that leads you to the perfect road.
Katy Perry
Do you wrestle with dreams? Do you contend with shadows? Do you move in a kind of sleep? Time has slipped away. Your life is stolen. You tarried with trifles, Victim of your folly.
Frank Herbert
There is a fragrance in the air, a certain passage of a song, an old photograph falling out from the pages of a book, the sound of somebody's voice in the hall that makes your heart leap and fills your eyes with tears. Who can say when or how it will be that something easters up out of the dimness to remind us of a time before we were born and after we will die?
Frederick Buechner
And then like a song we'd forgotten was even on the mix, you stepped into the house and my whole life.
Daniel Handler
But his singing was unconscious and irrepressible - an expression of his native exuberance, the dreamy, buoyant soundtrack running through his head.
Jennifer Haigh
A large American automobile came crawling close to us, and we could hear from behind its thick windows the deep bass of the radio, and the nasty words of a hateful song.It seemed like so much of modern music, a din to drive human beings mad.
Anne Rice
You see there's no real ending, it's only the beginning, come out and play.
Shinedown
Am I the only one who measures time using songs? “Oh it only took me 4 songs to get here! that’s not to long!
Kendrick Lamar
Now I'm a warriorNow i've got thicker skinI'm a warrior I'm stronger than i've ever beenAnd my amorIs made of steel you can't get in i'm a warriorAnd you can never hurt me again
Demi Lovato
Hush now, my darlingIt's all okayNothing can hurt youThe world won't end today Lay down your headGet some restThis time will passWe're coming up on the bestJust give it timeIt's all gonna changeBut remember it takes timeFor things to rearrangeThere are happy people in happy placesMy darling, out thereOne day, it'll changeOne day, it'll change
Kaitlyn Deann
And what if there are no damsels in distress?What if I knew that, and I called your bluff?Don't you think every kitten figures out how to get down,whether or not you ever show up?
Ani DiFranco
I got the Eye of the Tiger The FireDancing through the fire Cause I am a Champion!And your gonna hear me Roar-Roar
Katy Perry
Pure and soft, the melody is entrancing. Haunting. I’m glued to my seat, waiting, hoping for the next enthralling sound. I’d close my eyes if I weren’t afraid I’d miss a second of his performance.
Cassie Graham
It's a lost and lonely kind of feeling,To wake up wearing a disguise.I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, I don't know who I am There's little that I canFully recognize....But I'm taking small steps,'Cause I don't know where I'm going.I'm taking small stepsAnd I don't know what to say.Small steps, Trying to pull myself together, And maybe I'll discover A clue along the way....Just to make it through the day and not to get hurt,Seems about the best that I can hope.Like coffee stains splattered on your sweatshirt There isn't any pattern. Everything's uncertain.It's difficult to cope....But I'm taking small steps,'Cause I don't know where I'm going.I'm taking small steps,And I've forgotten how to play.Small steps, Trying to pull myself together, And maybe I'll discover,A clue along the way....And if someday my small steps bring me near you,Please don't rush to tell me all you feel.You don't have to speak for me to hear you. If I softly sigh, Look me in the eyeAnd let me know I'm real....Then we'll take small steps,'Cause we won't know where we're going.We'll take small steps,And we'll have too much to say.Small steps, Hand in hand we'll walk together, And maybe we'll discover A clue along the way....Small steps,'Cause I don't know where I'm goin'.Small steps,I just take it day to day.Small steps, Somehow get myself together, Then maybe I'll discoverWho I am on the way....
Louis Sachar
But unlike sirens, selkies don't mean any harm with their songs. They don't sing to seduce or to kill. Their songs have nothing to do with anyone but themselves. They sing for the simple joy of it, and because of that, I imagine their songs are more beautiful than those of any siren.
Betsy Cornwell
You're a freaking pschopath," I said, but he only chuckled."I don't expect you to understand, little bird," He turned toward me fully, fingering his blade and smiling. "I expect you only to sing. Sing for me, sing for Kanin, and make it a glorious song
Julie Kagawa
Nothing safe is worth the drive.
Taylor Swift
Life is like music on a scale, moving up and down. When your life is over, you have written your song.
Peggy Toney Horton
Life is like music on a scale, shifting up and down. When your life is over, your song has been written.
Peggy Toney Horton
Ahesta boro, Mah-e-man, ahesta boro.
Khaled Hosseini
Although it was only a single instrument, each note had the peculiar echoed quality of a thousand harmonics voiced together. There was a whisper behind the strongest note and a shout beneath the softest, and they sang of far off places in long forgotten times. There were no words, but the images of ancient pride, noble heritage, and castles in the sand were imagined from the progression. This was the song that would be played at the birth of a nation, full of hope and promise of better days ahead. This was the song of the end of days with all love and longing lost beyond recall or desire. Farris could see this song playing at her wedding, or her funeral, as a herald of joy and sorrow. She found tears in her eyes and heard herself laugh, and she couldn’t say why she was doing either. Her skin was tense and covered with goosebumps, and she shivered with pleasure.
Tobias Wade
Wedding song (reprise)But you and I, through burning plains, through darkness of the earth, affirm the world, its people, the heavens that gave them birth, the breath that passes between us, this new home where we stand, and all those things made larger by the vows between woman and man.
Margaret Weis
Hard WindSister with iron hoovesTogether we shall travel steppesthat no man nor mount has seenCourage will be my saddleAnd your bridle shall be my faith in you …
Greg Keyes
Sometimes it may seem dark, but the absence of the light is a necessary part.
Jason Mraz
Your heart plays a song like a broken music box, but nothing ever sounded quite so beautiful to me. Together, in the dance of wounded-wing swans we’ll rise above the ruins, melting into the golden light.
John Mark Green
You think I'm psycho, you think I'm goneTell the psychiatrist something is wrongOver the bend, entirely bonkersYou like me best when I'm off my rockerTell you a secret, I'm not alarmedSo what if I'm crazy? The best people are.
Melanie Martinez
He knew how to construct a song out of the nothing of day-to-day life and how to sing that nothing into a song so beautiful that it could sustain the vision of a whole and better world.
Kate DiCamillo
Where are you?” she whispered. “Have you abandoned us?”..."Listen, little Songkeeper," the voice whispered, and I will sing you a Song.
Gillian Bronte Adams
His smile banished my loneliness and limbed the hollows of my anema with starlight, pure and bright...his touch hummed in my bones like an aria -- a song to my dance, a beginning of a promise.
Roshani Chokshi
people change and promises are broken
Nick Jonas
And so the Wolf of the West rose from the stone! And so he will rise again if ever the folk of the Six Duchies call to him in need.
Robin Hobb
All of the people took it up and sung it over and over until it was wrung dry, and no further innovations of tone and tempo were conceivable. Then they hushed and ate barbecue.
Zora Neale Hurston
Blue skiesSmiling at meNothing but blue skiesDo I seeBluebirdsSinging a songNothing but bluebirdsAll day longNever saw the sun shining so brightNever saw things going so rightNoticing the days hurrying byWhen you're in love, my how they flyBlue daysAll of them goneNothing but blue skiesFrom now onI never saw the sun shining so brightNever saw things going oh-so rightNoticing the days hurrying byWhen you're in love, my how they flyBlue daysAll of them goneNothing but blue skiesFrom now onSongwriter: Irving Berlin
Ella Fitzgerald
We were orphans before we were ever the sons of these songs.
The Gaslight Anthem
wake up who cares about little boys that talk too much
Mr. Big
Everybody at the party is a many sided polygon....Nonagon!
They Might Be Giants
Blood in the water I sing, and one who shed it: deadliest hunger I sing, and one who fed it- weaving the ancient-most tale of the Sea's sending: singing the tragedy, singing the joy unending This is our shame- this is the whole Ocean's glory: this is the Song of the Twelve. Hark to the story! Hearken, and bring it to pass: swift lest the sorrow long ago laid to it's rest devour us tomarrow!
Diane Duane