c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Come thaw my frozen heart, my little arctic kitten.”Unable to resist, Aria jumped in and picked up the next line. “No chance, my yeti man, I’d rather be frostbitten.”“Let me be your snowman. Come live in my igloo.”“I’d rather freeze to death than hibernate with you.
— Veronica Rossi, Through the Ever Night
If only, if only, the moon speaks no reply;Reflecting the sun and all that's gone by.Be strong my weary wolf, turn around boldly.Fly high, my baby bird,My angel, my only
— Louis Sachar, Holes
Every single day I'll keep you with me, no matter how far from me you are.
— S.C. Stephens, Reckless
Every day is getting worseDo the same things and they hurtI don't know if I should cryAll I know is that I'm tryin' I wanna believe in you, I wanna believe in you So why can't you be, be good to me....
— Grace Norwich
If a song's meant to stay around, you carry it with you in your bones.
— Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places
I'll be your mess, you be mineThat was the deal that we had signed
— Gayle Forman, Where She Went
Please take a long, hard look at your textbook, cause I'm history
— Owl City
The right song can turn an emperor into a laughingstock, can bring down dynasties.
— Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys
Everything changes, it all﻿ stays the same,Everyone guilty, no one to blame,Every way out, brings you back to the start,Everyone dies to break somebody's heart...
— Motorhead
And I don't want the world to see me, Cause I don't think that they'd understand.When everything's made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am.
— Goo Goo Dolls
True love is actually very hard to understand... Everybody is looking for love, everybody is fighting for love... But because they can't bear to say it outloud, they express it through songs
— Yuu Watase
If you drive a car, I'll tax the street;if you try to sit, I'll tax your seat; if you get too cold, I'll tax the heat; if you take a walk, I'll tax your feet.
— George Harrison
I don't know why you care. He doesn't even know you're there
— 'N Sync
Forest deep, silent bellsThere's a secret no one tellsValley quiet, water stillLynburns watching on the hillApples red, corn goldAlmost everyone grows old
— Sarah Rees Brennan, Unspoken
Oh ... My twitchy witchy girl I think you are so nice, I give you bowls of porridge And I give you bowls of ice-cream.
— Neil Gaiman, Coraline
Are you, are you Coming to the tree They strung up a man They say who murdered three. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met at midnight In the hanging tree.Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where the dead man called out For his love to flee. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met at midnight In the hanging tree.Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where I told you to run, So we'd both be free. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met at midnight In the hanging tree.Are you, are you Coming to the tree Wear a necklace of rope, Side by side with me. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met at midnight In the hanging tree.
— Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay
A little light in the dark night A faint voice is calling you This way! This way! This flickering, wavering little voiceLike dew, like a bonfireThe voice of insectsthe sound of the water You can never lose themonce you've heard them...
— Natsumi Mukai
I thought I could let you goI thought that you could leave and knowThe time we took would fadeBut I’m colder than the bed where we layYou let go if you like, I’ll hold onSay no all you want, I’m not doneBaby, I promise youDid you think I’d let you go?That’s never happening and now you knowTake your time, I’ll waitRegretting every last thing I said
— Kylie Scott, Lick
They sang the words in unison, yet somehow created a web of sounds with their voices. It was like hearing a piece of fabric woven with all the colors of a rainbow. I did not know that such beauty could be formed by the human mouth. I had never heard harmony before.
— Anita Diamant, The Red Tent
Do you think aboutEverything you've been throughYou never thought you'd be so depressedAre you wonderingIs it life or deathDo you think that there's no one like youWe areWe areWe areWe are the onesWe get knocked downWe get back up and stand above the crowdWe are oneWe are the onesWe get knocked downWe get back up and stand above the crowdWe are oneThe life I think aboutIs so much better than thisI never thought I'd be stuck in this messI'm sick of wonderingIs it life or deathI need to figure out who's behind youWe areWe areWe areWe are the onesWe get knocked downWe get back up and stand above the crowdWe are oneWe are the onesWe get knocked downWe get back up and stand above the crowdWe are oneThe life I think aboutIs so much better than thisI never thought I'd be stuck in this messI'm sick of wonderingIs it life or death?We are the onesWe get knocked downWe get back up and stand above the crowdWe are oneWe are the onesWe get knocked downWe get back up and stand above the crowdWe are oneWe stand above the crowdWe stand above the crowdWe stand above the crowd (Crowd)(We stand) We stand above the crowdWe stand above the crowd (We Stand)We stand above the crowd(We are the ones) We stand above the crowd(We get knocked down get back up) We stand above the crowd(We are the ones) We stand above the crowd(We get knocked down get back up) We stand above the crowdWe stand above the crowdWe stand above the crowdWe stand above the crowd
— Three Days Grace, Three Days Grace: One-X
Who are you? the band sang. I tried to remember but I really couldn't say.
— Janet Fitch, White Oleander
I'd like to add her initial to my monogram...
— Ira Gershwin
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, Deep Wizardry
Gilded palace of Flying BurritosExcellent Nouveau Mexican CuisineWe all got to wear Swank-Ass Nudie SuitsI should have known it was a lousy pipe dreamOhhh, Ohhh, what an awesome jobOhhh, Ohhh, what do I do now??Ohh, Ohhhhh, it's like I've been robbedSpent the last of my paychequeAnd I'm feelin' pretty downnnnn!!
— Bryan Lee O'Malley, Scott Pilgrim, Volume 2: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
I doubt it is your styleNot to get what you set out to acquireThe eyes are on fireYou are the unforecasted stormBrianstorm
— Arctic Monkeys
If I had the knackI'd sing likeCherry flakes falling
— Bashō Matsuo, On Love and Barley: Haiku of Basho
Won't you be my girlfriend I'll treat you goodI know you hear your friends when they say you should 'Cause if you were my girlfriend I'd be your shining star The one to show you where you are
— 'N Sync
Ascend, may you find so resistanceJust know that you made such a differenceAll you leave behind will live to the endThe cycle of suffering goes onBut memories of you stay strongSome day I too will fly and find you again
— Alter Bridge, Alter Bridge - One Day Remains
If only, if only, the woodpecker sighs, The bark on the tree was just a little bit softer.While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely, He cries to the moo-oo-oon, If only, if only.
— Louis Sachar, Holes
If I die tomorrow, I'll be alright because I believe that after we're gone, spirit carries on...
— Dream Theater, Metropolis 2000: Scenes from New York
love is but an echo in her head
— David Cantor
Everybody at the party is a many sided polygon....Nonagon!
— They Might Be Giants
wake up who cares about little boys that talk too much
— Mr. Big
Here is the soundless cypress on the lawn:It listens, listens. Taller trees beyondListen. The moon at the unruffled pondStares. And you sing, you sing.That star-enchanted song falls through the airFrom lawn to lawn down terraces of sound,Darts in white arrows on the shadowed ground;And all the night you sing.My dreams are flowers to which you are a beeAs all night long I listen, and my brainReceives your song, then loses it againIn moonlight on the lawn.Now is your voice a marble high and white,Then like a mist on fields of paradise,Now is a raging fire, then is like ice,Then breaks, and it is dawn.
— Harold Monro, Collected Poems
We were orphans before we were ever the sons of these songs.
— The Gaslight Anthem , Orphans
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
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
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, Assassin's Fate
people change and promises are broken
— Nick Jonas
Things perish. Gods have passed.But song sublimely castShall citadels outlast.
— Théophile Gautier, Émaux et Camées
A song, a beautiful song sings in my soul and heart.Religious Leader Petra Cecilia Maria HermansThe Religion Of The Blue Circle
— Petra Hermans
During certain periods of our lives, we may listen to a particular song that touches our hearts so much that we end up repeating the song for the umpteenth time. My question is, how would you know the next song will also touch your heart if you don't allow the playlist to flow? This happens to us in real life; sometimes we get too comfortable with one thing such that we don't allow for other experiences and opportunities.
— Oscar Bimpong
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, The Star-Touched Queen
Then one day I found my head when I wasn't even trying.
— Cat Stevens
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, Songkeeper
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, The Magician's Elephant
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
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
Sometimes it may seem dark, but the absence of the light is a necessary part.
— Jason Mraz, Love Is a Four Letter Word
All my friends are bums. We all gather round our camp-fire (in a can) and sing songs of togetherness as we cuddle, to preserve our warmth...
— Will Advise
Sing a Song before you can Sing some Song ~
— save-lagu.com
Sing a Song before you can't Sing some Song ~
— save-lagu.com
For I am you and you are I.
— Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
I just want you to know, I love the way you look at me. Make's me feel like everything's gonna be okay.
— Luke  Taylor, The Quiet Kill
When we hear the bird sing, it hears only how to love. (Quand on entend l'oiseau chanter, - Lui n'entend que comment aimer.)
— Charles de Leusse
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, The Blackgod
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, Test of the Twins
How many rivers do we have to cross,Before we can talk to the boss?
— Bob Marley
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, The First Man: An Enlightened Journey
Birds are sensitive to mispronunciation, even more sensitive than the French.
— Alan Powers
I wish that I could wake up with amnesia and forget about those stupid little things.
— Ace Khiel Peralta Cox
Ahesta boro, Mah-e-man, ahesta boro.
— Khaled Hosseini
Life is like music on a scale, shifting up and down. When your life is over, your song has been written.
— Peggy Toney Horton, Cries of a Broken Spirit: Based on a true story of adultery, alcoholism and suicide...
Life is like music on a scale, moving up and down. When your life is over, you have written your song.
— Peggy Toney Horton
Nothing safe is worth the drive.
— Taylor Swift
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, The Immortal Rules
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, Tides
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, Small Steps
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, Unable to Resist
I drew a chair up beside her and sang. All I do is dream of you the whole night through . . . It was a horrible rendition, and I quite enjoyed attempting it, setting the notes free from the song as each one went farther and farther astray.
— Helen Oyeyemi, Boy, Snow, Bird
As long as I can be with you, even my digital heart will start to throb. Like a quantum wind, my heart will start to sway.
— Rin and Len Kagamine
Beautiful songs and voice echo in my heart.
— Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
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
Float beyond the world of trees. Out into the whispering breeze, past the rushes, past the weeds, past the marsh's waving reeds.
— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
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, Ani Difranco: The Complete Lyrics
You are my favorite song
—  a rhythm of beauty that captures my spirit.
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, The Witches' Sleep
My favourite songs from literally all my favourite albums are usually always track 10. Coincidence? Conspiracy? Illuminati? Time will tell.
— Tyler Hojberg
She set out for revenge, to run them through, to do what an elf, an elf must do.” The next verse was Merill’s to improvise. “Climbed that roost, alighted right there. Made mush of his head for the onlooker bears.” “A two-pronger her prize, a meat most rare. Do-gooders will pay. Do-gooders will fear.” “Ballad of the loneliest ones,” lamented Merill. “The loneliest ones,” said Almi. She accepted that title; they were the loneliest. The elf gloomed.
— Darrell Drake, Where Madness Roosts
God has prepared for Himself one great song of praise throughout eternity, and those who enter the community of God join in this song. It is the song that the “morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy” at the creation of the world. (Job 38:7). It is the victory song of the children of Israel after passing through the Red Sea, the Magnificat of Mary after the annunciation, the song of Paul and Silas in the night of prison, the song of the singers on the sea of glass after their rescue, the “song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb” (Rev. 15:3) It is the song of the heavenly fellowship.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
. . .where there is no more hope, song remains.
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
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, Demi
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
Juliet, the dice were loaded from the start. / When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet?
— Mark Knopfler
You see there's no real ending, it's only the beginning, come out and play.
— Shinedown
Singing the songs, writing the lyrics, emotioning the words; that is all I can do for love.
— M.F. Moonzajer
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, Merrick
But his singing was unconscious and irrepressible - an expression of his native exuberance, the dreamy, buoyant soundtrack running through his head.
— Jennifer Haigh, Faith
And then like a song we'd forgotten was even on the mix, you stepped into the house and my whole life.
— Daniel Handler, Why We Broke Up
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, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale
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, Dune
Maybe the reason why all the doors are closed so you could open one that leads you to the perfect road.
— Katy Perry, Firework
Pick a star on the dark horizon and follow the light.
— Regina Spektor
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, Summer and Bird
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, Gravity's Rainbow
Her voice was caught in the shell of my ear, as if it were the ocean.
— Jodi Picoult, The Storyteller
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
She was only half Bird now, and the other half song. She liked it that way.
— Katherine Catmull, Summer and Bird
At that moment a solitary violin struck up. But the music was not dance music; it was more like a song - a solemn, sweet song. (I know now that it was Beethoven's Romance in F.) I listened, and suddenly it was as if the fog that surrounded me had been penetrated, as if I were being spoken to.
— Jennifer Paynter, Mary Bennet
I knew it was Peter playing. I fancied he was trying to tell me something - an absurd idea, but it persisted - 'I may not be able to spell, but just you listen to this.
— Jennifer Paynter, Mary Bennet
Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.
— Susan Sontag
The greatest gift you can give anyone is your undivided attention...
— Will Schwalbe, The End of Your Life Book Club
There are so many attention whores out there, prostituting for people's acknowledgment
— Jason Myers, The Mission
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
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, A Thousand Mornings
Cabel gives her a quizzical look. "I am totally not getting enough attention here.
— Lisa McMann, Fade
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
The most basic way to get someone's attention is this: Break a pattern.
— Chip Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
I cook to inspire my husband to pay attention to me.
— Sonia Rumzi, Simple Conversation
All bad behavior is really a request for love, attention, or validation.
— Kimberly Giles, Choosing Clarity: The Path to Fearlessness
The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.
— Keanu Reeves
The breath of the mind is attention 128
— Joseph Joubert, The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert
Dickens writes that one of his characters, "listened to everything without seeming to, which showed he understood his business.
— Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
Mind your attention! Don’t just give it to any action and reaction at all!
— Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
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
Life offers the ability to pursue what catches your attention.
— Steven Redhead, Life Is A Cocktail
God is constantly talking to us but we can't hear him because we pay too much attention to the noise from the world. Genesis 12:22.
— Felix Wantang, Face to Face Meetings with Jesus Christ 2 (Read Chapter One)): Astounding Biblical Mysteries revealed in his own words like never before in human history.
Draw the attention of those who do things out of spite, to something else, away from what you wish to avoid.
— Nabil N. Jamal
Attention, aboard the shuttle! You are under arrest! Surrender immediately! Come out slowly, in single file, with your hands behind your heads! Leave all weapons behind. Comply and your lives will be spared!
— Christina Engela, Dead Beckoning
That's the thing, though. You always think you want to be noticed. Until you are
— Sarah Dessen, Saint Anything
Attention, if sudden and close, graduates into surprise; and this into astonishment; and this into stupefied amazement.
— Charles Darwin
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, The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads
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
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, The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads
Oh, fucking expression, attention and impression!(Dexter)
— Deyth Banger
When something small loudly demands all our attention, its noise often drowns out the whisper of what's enormously important.
— Craig Groeschel, Weird: Because Normal Isn't Working
It is no different from the way it is on Earth, if one is paying attention. If only people would pay closer attention, to everything. Then they would know what mattered without stumbling blindly (albeit at times willingly) in the wrong direction. Man may be born to trouble, be he doesn't have to stay there.
— Lorna Jane Cook, Outside Wonderland
When people don't like you... you feel it. They don't pay attention at you... they some kind a ignore you... they don't talk a lot of with you.....
— Deyth Banger
Before being born, his mother explained, babies go to school. Not a school like Boris’s, but a different kind of school, where all the teachers are angels. The angels teach each baby the entire Torah, along with all of the secrets of the universe. Then, just before each baby is born, an angel puts its finger right below the baby’s nose—here she paused to put her finger across his lips (could he see the blood under her skin, or did he only imagine it?)—and whispers to the child: Shh—don’t tell. And then the baby forgets. “Why does he have to forget?” Boris had asked, moving his lips beneath her finger. He didn’t want to know, not really. But his mother’s back had stiffened, and he could feel that she might get up at any moment, put out the light, walk away, disappear. She pulled her hand away from his face, resting it on her own stomach. “So that for the rest of his life,” she said, “he will always have to pay attention to the world, and to everything that happens in it, to try to remember all the things he’s forgotten.
— Dara Horn, The World to Come
Loyalty is what you focus on and won't give up.
— Shannon L. Alder
Everyone's always making fun of him and calling him crazy behind his back, but I can kind of understand how someone would end up that way. I mean, if no one ever pays attention to you telling the truth, then it probably makes sense to try lying for a change.
— Amy Reed, Clean
Looking back on it all, I believe when we were on the streets coming up, we were simply looking for somebody to look our way. Even though guys were getting killed, the gang continued to grow. I heard some older folks say one time, ‘As soon as two or three of them get killed, this gang will go to the dogs.’ Each time one of us got killed, it hurt, but, that made us stronger. Anthony ‘Ada’ Allen, one of the former leaders and founders of the Rebellion Raiders
— Drexel Deal, The Fight of My Life is Wrapped Up in My Father
As you attention is divided the opportunity for error increases exponentially.
— R.A.Delmonico
I need attention?No...I need victim....!
— Deyth Banger
As for now I will pay attention to works like "Lie to me", "Person of Interest", "Numb3rs" and "Blindspot". (2016!)
— Deyth Banger
The gift of your time and attention is love in action.
— Michael Thomas Sunnarborg, Balancing Work, Relationships & Life in Three Simple Steps
I lower my mouth to his and kiss him softly. He closes his eyes and begins to ease his head against the bed. "Keep them open," I whisper, pulling away from his lips. He opens them, regarding me with and intensity that penetrates straight to my core. "I want you to keep them open...because I need you to watch me give you the very last piece of my heart.
— Colleen Hoover, Hopeless
What is the greatest need of human beings? What is it they seek from me always? Intimacy. I listen with all my being, I am completely interested. I seek momentarily a full communion of eyes, feelings, thoughts.
— Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 6: 1955-1966
The longer I observe the way people really act, the happier I am that I never pay attention to them.
— George Alec Effinger, When Gravity Fails
Fear is not to be overcome, or dreaded, or avoided, or expelled from our life; neither is it to be our dwelling, obsession or constant companion. But it should be respected, recognized, and humbly listened to for its singular solemn advice. Indeed, it's wise and cautionary warnings should always be heeded. Fear was designed to function as a familiar adviser, an overly critical, cautious, conservative friend - not our foe. When it is accepted, and appreciated for what it is, fear is a sage, a warning system, and one of our oldest, most experienced guides. When it holds itself at bay as necessary, it is like the security detail that waits at some serious attention in the back of the room, ever watchful, ever ready, benign, non-threatening - until circumstances require its sensitive, timely services.
— Connie Kerbs, Paths of Fear: An Anthology of Overcoming Through Courage, Inspiration, and the Miracle of Love
God’s love is God’s attention.
— Pat Schneider, How the Light Gets in: Writing as a Spiritual Practice
Life has the habit of throwing curve balls to determine if you are paying attention.
— Steven Redhead, Life Is Simply A Game
I should leave, she told herself once or twice, to savor the thought of their surprise, their regret. What a childish idea. Then Jack would leave, no doubt, so that should would come back, as she would have to do, and her father would be plunged in sorrow of which she was directly the cause, and which would not end in this life.
— Marilynne Robinson, Home
Even those who know better, such as the King, nurse strange ideas about me as a prophet. They do not understand that I am given to see only those matters that roil the heavens. They expect me to know everything.
— Geraldine Brooks, The Secret Chord
We turn our attention to the government and we whine about the incompetence of the police, we also complain about the breakdown in law and order. Yet, we forget that we actually had a role to play in the consequences we are reaping.
— Sunday Adelaja
You must however pay attention to the fact that we don’t only lose time to lateness. We also lose time to jokes, gossip, empty talks, sleep on duty, social media etc.
— Sunday Adelaja
I learned to cope with my needs for attention by creating my own private personal rituals to make myself feel special.
— Merrill Markoe, Walking in Circles Before Lying Down
There's always more than what meets the eye. If you dig in deep enough and pay attention, you can really see the beauty in a person.
— April Mae Monterrosa
Everytime he looked at her she felt brighter inside, and she yearned to keep his attention, to hold his gaze.
— Jessica Khoury, Vitro
To all the readers,whom despitethe attraction of tv,of internet,of family troubles,of video games,of sport,of night clubs,have found some hoursso we can all dream together.
— Bernard Werber
Our attention should be concentrated on God, instead of on what we wear.
— Sunday Adelaja
Bless you with the curse to remain busy always.
— Amit Abraham
People will stop trying to prove their something special when they finally realized their already unique in God's creation.
— Ron Baratono
The often-used phrase “pay attention” is apt: you dispose of a limited budget of attention that you can allocate to activities, and if you try to you try to go beyond your budget, you will fail.
— Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
When you guarantee increase, you create attention for yourself
— Sunday Adelaja
From the simplest lyric to the most complex novel, literature is asking us to pay attention. Pay attention to the frog. Pay attention to the west wind. Pay attention to the boy on the raft, the lady on the tower, the old man on the train. In sum, pay attention to the world and all that dwells therein and thereby learn at last to pay attention to yourself and all that dwells therein.
— Frederick Buechner
Is it possible that the national psychology emphasizing bigness has caused us to think only in those terms – to the detriment of the small things that have to be done if we are to win the war?
— Molly Guptill Manning, When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II
According to the prevailing notion, freedom manifests as “preference-satisfying behavior.” About the preferences themselves we are to maintain a principled silence, out of deference to the autonomy of the individual. They are said to express the authentic core of the self, and are for that reason unavailable for rational scrutiny. But this logic would seem to break down when our preferences are the object of massive social engineering, conducted not by government “nudgers” but by those who want to monetize our attention.
— Matthew B. Crawford
He had to do so many things and make each appear as though it were the only thing he had to do. He had to compartmentalize everything, when on one task to pretend that the others didn't exist.
— Tom Clancy, Debt of Honor
Her romances often seemed like dalliances; she enjoyed male company and blossomed in its presence, but she did not appear to care deeply about any of the men [Steiner]
— Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953
In your travels, do not draw your attention to those stones in the dirt that cause your feet to ache. But rather draw your attention to the loveliness of all that does surround you. Marvel at the blades of grass that seem to turn silk under the loom of golden leaves that share with you the sun’s warmth and ponder the impression of that morning fog whose kiss good morning gently asks Mother Nature to arise so that her spirit can bask in the beauty of her own imagination as she gazes into the distance, not in fear, but in awe of that beauty which will cause the imagination to create all endless possibilities that the spirit knows to already exist. Remember that your spirit is not a device that heeds to walls and streets that tell you where to go. Your spirit is your attention drawn to that beauty in the distance that only you can look to. Your spirit is connected to your environment by the imagination and the travel that you possess. Walk with your spirit in front of you and you will become part of that beauty in the distance that causes you to marvel with gladness. You will always be beautiful because this is who you are.
— Luccini Shurod, The Painter
He had never looked at me before, never, and the idea made my skin burn.
— Rainbow Rowell, Attachments
However, attention can be moved away from an unwanted focus, primarily by focusing intently on another target.
— Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
Attention is the most concrete expression of love. What we pay attention to thrives. What we do not pay attention to withers and dies. What will you pay attention to today?
— Karen Maezen Miller, Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life
God is the one who puts dreams inside you. So you'd better chase them fast, before He decides to let them chase you instead....Because sometimes He does that, just to get your attention.
— Amy Matayo, Love Gone Wild
Sometimes pain is God’s megaphone, his only way to get our attention.
— Robert Hellenga, Philosophy Made Simple
Time is our most precious currency. So it’s significant that we are being encouraged, wherever possible, to think of our attention not as expenditure but as consumption. This blurring of labor and entertainment forms the basis, for example, of the financial alchemy that conjures deca-billion-dollar valuations for social-networking companies.
— Mohsin Hamid
Not everyone who stares likes us
—  we may look weird enough to get everyone’s attention.
All that mattered was him looking at me
— Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
(It’s) a fair exchange. You’re giving me attention. That’s a form of affection, you know.
— Arthur Gordon, A Touch of Wonder
Running overtime is the one unforgivable error a lecturer can make. After fifty minutes (one microcentury as von Neumann used to say) everybody's attention will turn elsewhere.
— Gian-Carlo Rota, Indiscrete Thoughts
Ender began to eat, slowly and carefully, pretending not to notice he was the center of attention.
— Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
All eyes turned to look at us' would be a slipshod way of putting it; eyes don't turn anyway, heads do, but as our little group joined the fringe of the assembly, there was a discernible swivelling of attention in our direction.
— A .P., Sabine
Cassandra, when you want to speak to me, you should say 'Excuse me, Mrs. Johnson.' Then wait until you get my attention.""Excuse me, Mrs. Johnson. Do I have your attention now?
— Pseudonymous Bosch, The Name of This Book Is Secret
...a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention...
— Herbert A. Simon
I’m not a follower. I never have been. But I’ll definitely become someone I’m not for a few hours if it’ll make me blend in rather than make me a blatant eye sore and draw attention.
— J.A. Redmerski, The Edge of Never
Banality is like boredom: bored people are boring people, people who think that things are banal are themselves banal.Interesting people can find something interesting in all things.
— Idries Shah, Reflections
To both my parents, the world is a battle for attention, a war to be heard.
— Chuck Palahniuk, Damned
Not every President is a great speaker. Not every President is a great thinker. But in the modern era, every single President is a master of one thing: eye contact.
— Brad Meltzer, The Inner Circle
Evidently, a given object took no particular amount of time to draw; instead the artist took the time, or didn’t take it, at pleasure. And,similarly, things themselves possessed no fixed and intrinsic amount of interest; instead things were interesting as long as you had attention to give them. How long does it take to draw a baseball mitt? As much time as you care to give it. Not an infinite amount of time, but more time than you first imagined. For many days, so long as you want to keep drawing that mitt, and studying that mitt, there will always be a new and finer layer of distinctions to draw out and lay in. Your attention discovers—seems thereby to produce—an array of interesting features in any object, like a lamp.
— Annie Dillard, An American Childhood
I wonder if this is how people always get close: They heal each other's wounds
—  they repair the broken skin.
It's funny; in this era of e-mail and voice mail and all those things that even I did not grow up with, a plain old paper letter takes on amazing intimacy.
— Elizabeth Kostova, The Swan Thieves
Jason once told me that eye contact is the most intimacy two people can have -- forget sex -- because the optic nerve is technically an extension of the brain, and when two people look into each other's eyes, it's brain-to-brain.
— Douglas Coupland, Hey Nostradamus!
the sweet juices of your mouthare like castles bathed in honey.i've never had it done so gently before.you have put a circle of castlesaround my penis and you swirl themlike sunlight on the wings of birds.
— Richard Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America / The Pill vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster / In Watermelon Sugar
This is my skin. This is not your skin, yet you are still under it.
— Iain Thomas
We walked back to iDEATH, holding hands. Hands are very nice things, especially after they have travelled back from making love.
— Richard Brautigan, In Watermelon Sugar
Dear God, teach me to be careless.
— Hanif Kureishi, Intimacy
...they knew each other as much as they knew themselves, and their intimacy, rather like too many suitcases, was a matter of perpetual concern; together they moved slowly, clumsily, effecting lugubrious compromises, attending to delicate shifts of mood, repairing breaches. As individuals they didn't easily take offense; but together they managed to offend each other in surprising, unexpected ways; then the offender - it had happened twice since their arrival - became irritated by the cloying susceptibilities of the other, and they would continue to explore the twisting alleyways and sudden squares in silence, and with each step the city would recede as they locked tighter into each other's presence.
— Ian McEwan, The Comfort of Strangers
Most beds aren't as intimate as people think they are.
— Malcolm Bradbury, The History Man
The miraculous intimacy we shared did not have the time to generate into resentful emotional bondage
— Josephine Hart, The Reconstructionist
It's in giving yourself that you possess yourself
— Lou Andeas-Salome
Intimacy with one person could do this-empty the world of friendships, give a distaste for women's kisses and their bright chatter, make the ordinary world a little unreal and very uninteresting.
— Graham Greene, Orient Express
The French, it seems to me, strike a happy balance between intimacy and reserve. Some of this must be helped by the language, which lends itself to graceful expression even when dealing with fairly basic subjects.... And there's that famously elegant subtitle from a classic Western.COWBOY: "Gimme a shot of red-eye."SUBTITLE: "Un Dubonnet, s'il vous plait."No wonder French was the language of diplomacy for all those years.
— Peter Mayle, Encore Provence: New Adventures in the South of France
If people knew the sexual intimacy of each other, no one would greet each other on the street.
— Nelson Rodrigues
Though there are exceptions, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism tend to stress desirable states of consciousness, escaping the fretful, self-aware state of mind that so often makes everyday living a burden. For mystics from the Abrahamic faiths, however, the inward odyssey is also an upward odyssey, a quest for personal and vital communion with an infinite Being.
— David C. Downing, Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C. S. Lewis
Intimacy makes you feel unique. Intimacy makes you feel as though you have been singled out, that someone in the world believes you have special qualities that nobody else has.
— Heather O'Neill
To vigorous men intimacy is a matter of shame--and something precious.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
You know what’s so funny and sad about us human beings? . . . We are constantly torn between the all-consuming desire to be loved and the terrifying fear of being known. Deep inside we don’t believe the two things can exist together, that if anyone really knew us, they would surely never love us, so we spend our whole lives concocting this wonderful, plastic shell that we fight like madmen to keep pristine. But eventually the plastic cracks and what is inside is a raw, quivering mass of imperfect humanity that has always been lovely and precious enough for God Himself to love.
— Earlene Fowler, Steps to the Altar
. . . the walls of her vagina tightening around me as she laughed.
— Eric Jerome Dickey, Dying for Revenge
That is a terrifically intimate thing, you know? Letting a stranger light your cigarette. Leaning forward so he can hold a flame to your lips. Pausing to breathe in before you pull back again.
— Elizabeth Wein, The Pearl Thief
The only place Aletta and I could be together unseen was just under the rafters in the church tower, a circumstance that propelled us into an earlier intimacy than what we would have known had we been permitted to walk together Sunday afternoons under the wide sky.
— Susan Vreeland, Girl in Hyacinth Blue
Those minutiae calcify into the bones of our intimacy.
— Jac Jemc, The Grip of It
We held each other so close that we might indeed have been one body.
— James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk
The cabinets and shelves are a bright busy choreography of oils, shampoos, conditioners, scrubs, lotions, salts, unguents. Zinnia loves buying pots and bottles and tubes of alchemised essences that smell like yearning or intimacy on the skin.
— Glenn Haybittle, The Memory Tree
I feel a thrill of excitement at this first tiny glimpse of self-revelation, of intimacy.
— J.P. Delaney, The Girl Before
Intimacy with God is what determines our exploits
— Sunday Adelaja
A hug is a display of love that begins on the physical end of the spectrum but bleeds into the emotional end of the spectrum if you let it, if you give into it. It’s the most innocent, pure form of physical human connection there is. It only takes two willing people, who don’t even have to know each other, to participate. Two willing people who want that exchange. It’s so easy, but there are people who never get them. People who never get them,” she repeats softly, it’s a confession.
— Kim Holden, So Much More