Distraction Quotes

1. "Work is hard. Distractions are plentiful. And time is short."
Author: Adam Hochschild

2. "It had only been two days – two days – since he'd seen her last, and yet he'd missed her every step of the way. How was that possible? To miss someone you'd scarcely had in your life at all? For all his knowledge, he had no answer, only knew that every moment spent by her side made it that much more difficult to leave again. To accept the incoming battering of noise, the necessary barrenness of his life. The loneliness.He could hear the music of her voice so clearly as she spoke now, every inflection, every intonation. And the world around them, too – birds on the wing and children laughing. Her presence was a continual surprise, one that made him by turns calm and edgy and covetous. And mindful, his responsibilities, self-appointed though they were, crowding back into his mind on a silent sigh. The Descent was still closing in on him, and Dmitri still lived, which meant there was too much left to do and no time for distraction. But still..."
Author: Angela B. Wade

3. "Not knowing how to feed the spirit, we try to muffle its demands in distraction...What matters is that one be for a time inwardly attentive."
Author: Anne Morrow Lindbergh

4. "Attraction and distraction are the two stumbling blocks that are essentially met en route in life's journey towards excellence."
Author: Anuj Somany

5. "America is addicted to wars of distraction."
Author: Barbara Ehrenreich

6. "The 1920s was a great time for reading altogether, very possibly the peak decade for reading in American life. Soon it would be overtaken by the passive distraction of radio, but for the moment reading remained the people's principle method for filling idle time."
Author: Bill Bryson

7. "Even in the midst of all this commotion she knows none of it really belongs to her, and marvels at the strange fact of her dearest wish: to be part of it, to give in to it's distractions, to find herself the owner of a life lived rather than a life endured. And then she looks into the face of Mother #3, worn smooth and almost featureless, with moist eyes that can't seem to settle on anything for more than a heartbeat at a time, and she knows this is a very dangerous wish."
Author: Brady Udall

8. "The mark of perfect Friendship is not that help will be given when the pinch comes (of course it will) but that, having been given, it makes no difference at all. It was a distraction, an anomaly."
Author: C.S. Lewis

9. "I do not want to be human. I want to be myself. They think I'm a lion, that I will chase them. I will not deny that I have lions in me. I am the monster in the wood. I have wonders in my house of sugar. I have parts of myself I do not yet understand.I am not a Good Robot. To tell a story about a robot who wants to be human is a distraction. There is no difference. Alive is alive. There is only one verb that matters: to be."
Author: Catherynne M. Valente

10. "To stand here and try to fix her life is just a big waste of time. People don't want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messed cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown."
Author: Chuck Palahniuk

11. "Apply the blacksmith's homely principle when you are speaking. If you feel deeply about your subject you will be able to think of little else. Concentration is a process of distraction from less important matters. It is too late to think about the cut of your coat when once you are upon the platform, so centre your interest on what you are about to say—fill your mind with your speech-material and, like the infilling water in the glass, it will drive out your unsubstantial fears."
Author: Dale Carnegie

12. "The capitalist mind perceives the world purely in terms of material resources to be used for its benefit, to increase productivity and profit without thought of long term consequence. If there is still a vague and oppressive sense of guilt, of wrongness and imbalance, this gnawing guilt spurs capitalism on to greater acts of consumption, more ... Read moreviolent attempts to subjugate nature, more totalizing efforts to create distractions. To the "rational materialist" mind, death is the end of everything; this thought feeds its rage against nature, which has placed it in this position of despair."
Author: Daniel Pinchbeck

13. "Reading is an act of resistance in a landscape of distraction.... We regain the world by withdrawing from it just a little by stepping back from the noise."
Author: David L. Ulin

14. "The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the Dharma gate of repose and bliss, the practice-realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the manifestation of ultimate reality. Traps and snares can never reach it. Once its heart is grasped, you are like the dragon when he gains the water, like the tiger when she enters the mountain. For you must know that just there (in zazen) the right Dharma is manifesting itself and that, from the first, dullness and distraction are struck aside."
Author: Dogen

15. "Here in Seattle, I'm the most productive I've ever been. I don't allow myself personal distractions. I'm extremely disciplined here."
Author: Donald Byrd

16. "TARP is funded by taxpayers, so there are many rules about how that money can and can't be used. The result: GM spends an awful lot of time checking in with the people who administer TARP over everything from hiring to executive compensation and management. For a global company, that adds up to a lot of distraction."
Author: Edward Whitacre Jr.

17. "But Hey, Guess What Crazy means I'm not liablefor my actions. So screw it, I'll go home, propped up on Prozac against distractions"
Author: Ellen Hopkins

18. "I take thisfor myself, and you take up the thread of my life between your teeth,tin thread and tarnished with abuse,you shall still hearas long as the beast in me maintainsits taciturn power to close my lidsin tears, and my loins move yetin the ennobling pursuit of all the worldsyou have left me alone in, and would bethe dolorous distraction from,while you summon your army of anguisheswhich is a million hooting blood vesselson the eyes and in the earsat that instant before death."
Author: Frank O'Hara

19. "Art is the fatal net which catches these strange moments on the wing like mysterious butterflies, fleeing the innocence and distraction of common men."
Author: Giorgio De Chirico

20. "What else is God good for other than a distraction from the mire we're all stranded in?"
Author: Hannah Kent

21. "We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment."
Author: Hilaire Belloc

22. "The sound of my name in his voice stopped me in midturn. I don't know how the hell he did it, but whenever he said my name, it cut through all other distractions and made me pause, as if he'd clenched me to him and kissed me."
Author: Ilona Andrews

23. "Love obsession often serves as a distraction, keeping the individual's gaze from more painful thoughts."
Author: Irvin D. Yalom

24. "Music was always the distraction, so it was the obvious choice to pursue. My dad always said to find a job I love to do, that way it wouldn't feel like a job. So I did that."
Author: Jason Mraz

25. "This was truly to be a radical milestone: the world's first-ever marathon nude psychotherapy session for criminal psychopaths. Elliott's raw, naked, LSD-fueled sessions lasted for epic eleven day stretches. The psychopaths spent every waking moment journeying to their darkest corners in an attempt to get better. There were no distractions—no television, no clothes, no clocks, no calendars, only a perpetual discussion (at least one hundred hours every week) of their feelings. When they got hungry, they sucked food through straws that protruded through the walls. As during Paul Bindrim's own nude psychotherapy sessions, the patients were encouraged to go to their rawest emotional places by screaming and clawing at the walls and confessing fantasies of forbidden sexual longing for one another..."
Author: Jon Ronson

26. "In short, I was a mess. I had learned as a boy how to deal with distraction in a given moment, but the larger distractions of my life were overwhelming me. In an isolated situation, I could overcome the issues—I've always been able to bring it for the big game—but the kind of reckless intensity this required sapped me."
Author: Josh Waitzkin

27. "It's actually great to shoot far away from Hollywood because we don't have the distractions of the parties and premieres and all that. And, of course, you can save money - there are no good shoe stores."
Author: Katie Holmes

28. "Rocket Fever Grips Nation's Teenagers' cheers on enthusiastic newsreel, reflecting the nation's sudden reversal in attitude following the successful launch of Explorer-I into Earth orbit. Rather than being strange and threatening, outer space looks set to become the next big distraction after Elvis Presley and Davy Crockett hats. 'More and more teenagers are passing up rock and roll for a rocket role,' commentator Michael Fitzmaurice blithely remarks before very probably wishing he hadn't."
Author: Ken Hollings

29. "It hurt me to be away from him. Some days I went crazy wondering what he was doing. And when I couldn't handle it, I practiced music. I really had Aspen to thank for me being the musician that I was. He drove me to distraction.And that was bad."
Author: Kiera Cass

30. "Reeling and Writhing of course, to begin with,' the Mock Turtle replied, 'and the different branches of arithmetic-ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision."
Author: Lewis Carroll

31. "Genitals are a great distraction to scholarship"
Author: Malcolm Bradbury

32. "I imagine that one of the biggest troubles with colleges is there are too many distractions, too much panty-raiding, fraternities, and boola-boola and all of that."
Author: Malcolm X

33. "To choose art means to turn one's back on the world, or at least on certain of its distractions."
Author: Melvin Maddocks

34. "Some of my happiest funniest times have been spent in offices. Perhaps because the work was mudane, even the tiniest of distractions become wildly hilarious and wonderful. Actually, I'd say that 90 per cent of my doubled-over-gasping-with-laughther-laughing-so-much-that-you-can't-breathe-and-you-think-you-might-die laughing has occurred during slow days in offices."
Author: Miranda Hart

35. "As the publisher of the 'Tory,' I strive to defend the pillars of Western civilization against the distractions of diversity."
Author: Pete Hegseth

36. "Depending on their psychic make up, for some people, closing the eyes or being quiet produces anxiety and increases mental agitation. In such situations it is better to undertake the practice of yoga–whether physical yoga or meditation–with other people with whom one is comfortable and at ease. Gradually, as we see more and more clearly their roots, the fears and the imaginings will diminish. Mental distractions are harder to overcome when practicing alone. (109)"
Author: Ravi Ravindra

37. "Cool is spent. Cool is empty. Cool is ex post facto. When advertisers and pundits hoard a word, you know it's time to retire from it. To move on. I want to suggest, therefore, that we begin to avoid cool now. Cool is a trick to get you to buy garments made by sweatshop laborers in Third World countries. Cool is the Triumph of the Will. Cool enables you to step over bodies. Cool enables you to look the other way. Cool makes you functional, eager for routine distraction, passive, doped, stupid."
Author: Rick Moody

38. "A sweet disorder in the dressKindles in clothes a wantonnessA lawn about the shoulders thrownInto a fine distraction;"
Author: Robert Herrick

39. "After a few seconds of scraping, I realize what he has isn't a trail, it's a whole forest! Ack! Weren't all men supposed to shave their chest and stuff nowadays? Whatever happened to having fuzz-free Hollywood heroes as role models? At least my embarrassment is completely foregone by the irritation at his lack of upkeep. The only thing distracting me now is that heady mix of musk, shaving cream and a distinctly…male scent. And God knows that is one seriously jeopardizing distraction. Especially with a whizzing needle in one's hand."
Author: Rucy Ban

40. "I want to carve out a serious period of time to focus on the next opera without any distractions. And to do that you need money."
Author: Rufus Wainwright

41. "He did not wish to be divine. If there had never been a God, the emperor thought, it might have been easier to work out what goodness was. This business of worship, of the abnegation of self in the face of the Almighty, was a distraction, a false trail. Wherever goodness lay, it did not lie in ritual, unthinking obeisance before a deity but rather, perhaps, in the slow, clumsy, error-strewn working out of an individual or collective path."
Author: Salman Rushdie

42. "In one sense, Obama's point couldn't be clearer: race is a distraction from class-based inequities. And if we dismiss working-class resentment as camouflaged racism, we will continue to be distracted by the spectre of race."
Author: Sarah Churchwell

43. "I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness which characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm. I think that art has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction."
Author: Saul Bellow

44. "I stepped back, wrenching my hands from his. I was a boyfriend thief, I reminded myself. A boyfriend thief couldn't get personally attached to her work. It was a business agreement and nothing more. I wasn't thaf girl who fell for a guy that was absolutely, completely wrong for her and who had come along at exactly the absolute wrong time. I couldn't afford distractions at this point in my life. And Zac Greeley had distraction written all over him."
Author: Shana Norris

45. "In practice, the Internet functions more frequently as a hive of distraction, a simulated world through which most of us flit from one context to the next . . ."
Author: Steve Almond

46. "Deleting 200 spams a day is a drag. And I was checking my email constantly, rather than getting on with my real work, which is reading and writing. Email was becoming a distraction, a burden rather than a liberation."
Author: Tom Hodgkinson

47. "On s'en va parce qu'on a besoin de distraction et l'on revient parce qu'on a besoin de bonheur."
Author: Victor Hugo

48. "He was my equal in beauty, a paragon of grace and charm, sparkling with wit, and burning with love. I adored him to distraction, to the point of idolatry: I loved him as one can never love twice."
Author: Voltaire

49. "Multiple personalities. Don't freak out but I'm pretty sure I have them. Not a clinical thing, not a disease. But a distraction to be sure. There are maybe six or seven pretty concrete versions of myself knocking around in here and I mean it gets fucking crowded when everybody is drunk or talking at once."
Author: Will Christopher Baer

50. "My sensitive soul was no longer held down by heavy chains of duty and distraction -- it would now (I had theorized) take wing. But I was gripped by a kind of dull horror. Even in perfect conditions, I couldn't muster the perfect mood to be all that I wanted to be. I simply could not do it. If nothing was stopping me, what was stopping me?"
Author: Will Wiles

Distraction Quotes Pictures