paying attention Quotes

“Your unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwellin’ on himself and start payin’ attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form o’ self-indulgence.”

“You spent the whole day being angry with Michael. Did you notice how much fun we had?”

″‘If I watch out for rocks with my eyes straight ahead, I’ll keep out of trouble forever,’ I said.”

“Finally he decides that he’ll give the little boy his yellow car. Tomorrow he’ll be nice to the little boy. Then Alfie falls asleep without paying any more attention to the monster.”

“We had defended ourselves since memory against everything and everybody, considered all speech a code to be broken by us, and all gestures subject to careful analysis; we had become headstrong, devious, and arrogant. Nobody paid us any attention, so we paid very good attention to ourselves. Our limitations were not known to us—not then.”

″...huh. Schoolteachers?′ why couldn’t they be like they were supposed to be and just chuck things at you if you weren’t paying attention? Instead they all seemed to have been worrying about him and sending notes home and getting him to see a specialist.”