Attention Deficit Quotes & Sayings

Our attention span is shot. We've all got Attention Deficit Disorder or ADD or OCD or one of these disorders with three letters because we don't have the time or patience to pronounce the entire disorder. That should be a disorder right there, TBD - Too Busy Disorder. — Ellen DeGeneres

The word "lesson" came back to Pooh as one he had heard before somewhere.
"There's a thing called Twy-stymes," he said. "Christopher Robin tried to teach it to me once, but it didn't."
"What didn't?" said Rabbit.
"Didn't what?" said Piglet.
Pooh shook his head.
"I don't know," he said. "It just didn't. What are we talking about?"
"Pooh," said Piglet reproachfully, "haven't you been listening to what Rabbit was saying?"
"I listened, but I had a small piece of fluff in my ear. Could you say it again, please, Rabbit? — A.A. Milne

Is there a different between Attention Deficit Disorder and daydreaming? He mused. Ah, there I go again. Focus, — Stephen R. King

Children from like 8 and even up to the college age - Spider-Man appeals to a fairly broad demographic but, like I said, a mean age probably of 12 is a good mark - they process information so quickly and it's not because of attention deficit or short attention span. — Thomas Haden Church

As a child, Zaphod had been diagnosed with ADHDDAAADHD (ntm) ABT which stood for Always Dreaming His Dopey Days Away, Also Attention Deficit Hyperflactulance Disorder (not to mention) A Bit Thick. — Eoin Colfer

I was a classic attention deficit disorder kid, always bored and mouthing off at school. — Stephen Rodrick

Given that a significant percentage of children suffer from attention deficit problems in today's world, especially in more materially affluent societies, I am told that substantial efforts are being made to understand the faculty of attention and its causal dynamics. — Dalai Lama XIV

The whole bloody world's got a commitment problem.
It's the three-minute culture. It's a global attention-span deficit. — Helen Fielding

My nephew has HDADHD. High Definition Attention Deficit Disorder. He can barely pay attention, but when he does it's unbelievably clear. — Steven Wright

The first expert said he had attention deficit disorder. The second expert said the first was out of order. One said he was autistic, another that he was artistic. One said he had Tourette's syndrome. One said he had Asperger's syndrome. And one said the problem was that his parents had Munchausen syndrome. Still another said all he needed was a good old-fashioned spanking. — Pseudonymous Bosch

I have attention deficit disorder, so sitting in a classroom is not the best thing for me. — Jeremy Miller

Unless the Labour leadership candidates decide to settle the issue through televised mud-wrestling (Adam Boulton, I think, for referee, and he may even take part) they will find it hard to gain massive attention for their utterances. Nor would the wannabes be wise to sign up to Lord Adonis's optimistic gloom about the coalition not lasting. Watching David Laws this week going about deficit reduction with an avidity bordering on the erotic, I realised that there are very good reasons why the centre should hold. — David Aaronovitch

It soon becomes clear that everybody's pretending for tonight that they're still in the pre-crash fantasy years, dancing in the shadow of last year's dreaded Y2K, no safely history, but according to this consensual delusion not quite upon them yet, with all here remaining freeze-framed back at the Cinderella moment of midnight of the millennium when in the next nanosecond the world's computers will fail to increment the year correctly and bring down the Apocalypse. What passes for nostalgia in a time of widespread Attention Deficit Disorder. — Thomas Pynchon

So, please people, if you know someone with AD(H)D, don't try to change that about them. Don't take that one skill away, or make them feel ashamed to use it. Sometimes procrastination is all they have in their little superhero tool belt! — Stacey Turis

I realize that I can be with someone, but on a deeper level I'm not available to them at all. I have attention deficit disorder of the soul. — Sue Monk Kidd

Regularity chauvinists are people who insist that you have got to do the same thing every time, every day, which drives some of us nuts. Attention Deficit Disorder - we need a more positive term for that. Hummingbird mind, I should think. — Ted Nelson

With attention deficit democracy, I am trying to wake up people to how the combination of mass ignorance, fear mongering by the government, and lying politicians is putting our entire system of government to a death spiral. — James Bovard

One of the most promising developments since the publication of "The Geek Syndrome" has been the emergence of the concept of neurodiversity: the notion that conditions like autism, dyslexia, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) should be regarded as naturally occurring cognitive variations with distinctive strengths that have contributed to the evolution of technology and culture rather than mere checklists of deficits and dysfunctions. — Steve Silberman

It's not a disability, it's life. We are complicated creatures with larger matters on our plate than tip calculation. I grew up watching TV with my mother while she diagnosed the characters as having hyperactivity or attention-deficit disorder. I rolled my eyes and wondered why there weren't any stupid kids anymore. Why did there have to be something to explain everyone? Were the cave people on Ritalin? I didn't think so. — Sloane Crosley

One of the places where research is needed is all the sensory problems. And you get sensory problems not just with autism, but with dyslexia, learning problems, ADHD, attention deficit, you know, things like sound sensitivity, problems with fluorescent lighting. — Temple Grandin

My desire to experiment comes from my attention-deficit approach to cosmetics. I just get really bored, really easily. — Paloma Faith

Comic books are what novels used to be - an accessible, vernacular form with mass appeal - and if the highbrows are right, they're a form perfectly suited to our dumbed-down culture and collective attention deficit. — Charles McGrath

Nowadays a lot of what was wrong with me would no doubt be ascribed to Attention Deficit Disorder, tartrazine food colouring, dairy produce and air pollution. A few hundred years earlier it would have been demons, still the best analogy I think, but not much help when it comes to a cure. — Stephen Fry

The game is getting old, and I don't know if it's because I've mastered the art of it, or if I just have some weird attention-deficit-disorder when it comes to getting my way all the time, every time. — Kris Kidd

I'm one of those people who, if time permits, can read more than one book at a time, sometimes three. I don't know if that's indicative of an attention deficit disorder, all I know is that I've always been that way. — Janalyn Robnett

My doctor told me i had Attention Deficit Disorder. He said, 'ADD is a complex disorder, blah, blah, blah,' I didn't pay attention to the rest. — Kyle Dunnigan

Rafe didn't just flirt-he charmed girls right up to the point where they fell for him, then he changed his mind.I called him a player with attention deficit disorder. — Kelley Armstrong

I might be more kindly disposed to this ultra-secular notion that whenever bad things happen someone must be held accountable if a curious little halo of blamelessness did not seem to surround those very people who perceive themselves as bordered on every side by agents of wickedness. That is, it seems to be the same folks who are inclined to sue builders who did not perfectly protect them from the depredations of an earthquake who will be the first to claim that their son failed his math test because of attention deficit disorder, and not because he spent the night before at a video arcade instead of studying complex fractions. — Lionel Shriver

Attention deficit is no longer the supposed domain of Generation Y's who were brought up on a diet of social media and new technology. A recent study revealed 65 percent of 55-64 year olds surf, text and watch television simultaneously. — Kevin Kelly DO The Pursuit Of Xceptional Execution

I've been dyslexic and had Attention Deficit Disorder at some time in my life. I still read with a highlighter, but I've always loved to read. — Andrew Young

We have nothing against playing video games; they have many good features and benefits. Our concern is that when they are played to excess, especially in social isolation, they can hinder a young man's ability and interest in developing his face-to-face social skills. Multiple problems, including obesity, violence, anxiety, lower school performance, social phobia and shyness, greater impulsivity and depression, have all been associated with excessive gaming. The variety and intensity of video game action makes other parts of life, like school, seem comparatively boring, and that creates a problem with their academic performance, which in turn might require medication to deal with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which then leads to other problems down the road in a disastrous negative cycle ... — Philip G. Zimbardo

From the point of view of the meditative traditions the entire society is suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

If you're worried about the deficit, pay attention to the fact that it's almost all attributable to military spending and the totally dysfunctional health program. — Noam Chomsky

Serge's attention-deficit disorder was the first of many hyphens. Obsessive-compulsive, manic-depressive, anal-retentive, paranoid-schizophrenic. He was believed to be the only self-inflicted case of shaken-baby syndrome. — Tim Dorsey

I would say that it's a lot easier, especially if you have a bit of an attention deficit disorder, to be on a movie because you can give it your all, and kill yourself for however many months, and then let it go. — Majandra Delfino

Today, however, anti-vaccine activists go out of their way to claim that they are not anti-vaccine; they're pro-vaccine. They just want vaccines to be safer. This is a much softer, less radical, more tolerable message, allowing them greater access to the media. However, because anti-vaccine activists today define safe as free from side effects such as autism, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, strokes, heart attacks, and blood clots - conditions that aren't caused by vaccines - safer vaccines, using their definition, can never be made. — Paul A. Offit

The way my brain processes information is quite odd. I mean, I have Attention Deficit Disorder and another learning disability I can't even spell. I don't even have a high school diploma. I'm smart, but you can't prove it on paper. — Ron White

As the nature deficit grows, another emerging body of scientific evidence indicates that direct exposure to nature is essential for physical and emotional health. For example, new studies suggest that exposure to nature may reduce the symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and that it can improve all children's cognitive abilities and resistance to negative stresses and depression. — Richard Louv

I don't know if I'm attention deficit, but I certainly am easily distracted by other things. — James Vincent McMorrow

If you can somehow force a liberal into a point-counterpoint argument, his retorts will bear no relation to what you've said - unless you were in fact talking about your looks, your age, your weight, your personal obsessions, or whether you are a fascist. In the famous liberal two-step, they leap from one idiotic point to the next, so you can never nail them. It's like arguing with someone with Attention Deficit Disorder. — Ann Coulter

Attention-deficit disorders seem to abound in modern society, and we don't know the cause. — Marilyn Vos Savant

I suffer from ADDAD ... Attention Deficit Doing ANYTHING Disorder!
It's where you set a goal to do certain things, then you start to do one thing, but get distracted by other things, which causes you to bounce around from thing to thing only to end up doing a lot of things with nothing to show for it!! — Tanya Masse

Everyone I know has attention deficit, and they say it with great pride. It's a bad time to be right. — Joni Mitchell

If Jesus gives us a task or assigns us to a difficult season, every ounce of our experience is meant for our instruction and completion if only we'll let Him finish the work. I fear, however, that we are so attention-deficit that we settle for bearable when beauty is just around the corner. — Beth Moore

meaning indifferent to the distinction between things. It is not, on the whole, that natural phenomena and entities themselves are disappearing; rather that there are fewer people able to name them, and that once they go unnamed they go to some degree unseen. Language deficit leads to attention deficit. As — Robert Macfarlane

The learning principle is to plunge into the detailed mystery of the micro in order to understand what makes the macro tick. Our obstacle is that we live in an attention-deficit culture. — Josh Waitzkin

It is like our foreign policy has attention deficit disorder. — Tim Ryan

Several elements of the ADD mind favor creativity ... As mentioned earlier, the term 'attention deficit' is a misnomer. It is a matter of attention inconsistency. While it is true that the ADD mind wanders when not engaged, it is also the case that the ADD mind fastens on to its subject fiercely when it is engaged. A child with ADD may sit for hours meticulously putting together a model airplane. — Edward Hallowell

By autistic standards, the "normal" brain is easily distractible, is obsessively social, and suffers from a deficit of attention to detail and routine. Thus people on the spectrum experience the neurotypical world as relentlessly unpredictable and chaotic, perpetually turned up too loud, and full of people who have little respect for personal space. — Steve Silberman

I was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) as an adult, but I don't remember a time when I didn't have them. Back in the 1960s, when I was growing up, my symptoms didn't have a name, and you didn't go to the doctor to find out. — Howie Mandel

Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss. — Nora Ephron

There is nothing more entertaining then leaving someone speechless. Yet, there is nothing sadder than realizing that person was incapable of retaining half of what you said, and will repeat the story all wrong to someone else. — Shannon L. Alder

There is a nationwide shortage of drugs for Attention Deficit Disorder. The FDA says they're not sure how it happened. I guess somebody wasn't paying attention. — Jay Leno

attention deficit disorder in his own son. "I had worked in an ADHD clinic during my residency, and had strong feelings that this was overdiagnosed," he said. "That it was a 'savior' diagnosis for too many kids whose parents wanted a medical reason to drug their children, or to explain their kids' bad behavior. — Michael Lewis

Attention Deficit Disorder, Seasonal Affect Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder. These aren't diseases, they're marketing ploys. Doctors didn't discover them, copywriters did. Marketing departments did. Drug companies did. — Steven Pressfield

In the family of punctuation, where the full stop is daddy and the comma is mummy, and the semicolon quietly practises the piano with crossed hands, the exclamation mark is the big attention-deficit brother who gets overexcited and breaks things and laughs too loudly. — Lynne Truss

I figured out that whatever I selected myself I could read with more depth and more breadth - there was a match to my curiosity. And I could take advantage of what people later pathologized as Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) by using natural stimulation as a main driver to scholarship. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Reading is the unbelievably healthy way
my attention deficit disorder medicates itself.
Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to
make contact with reality after a day of making things up. — Nora Ephron

From a pathological standpoint, the incipient twenty-first century is determined neither by bacteria nor by viruses, but by neurons. Neurological illnesses such as depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), borderline personality disorder (BPD), and burnout syndrome mark the landscape of pathology at the beginning of the twenty-first century. They are not infections, but infarctions; they do not follow from the negativity of what is immunologically foreign, but from an excess of positivity. Therefore, they elude all technologies and techniques that seek to combat what is alien. — Byung-Chul Han

But young parents, educated middle-class ones anyway, are very jumpy these days, they get so much information from the media about all the things that could be wrong with their child - autism, dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, allergies, obesity and so on - they're in a constant state of panic, watching their offspring like hawks for warning signs. — David Lodge

20 years, we have experienced three unanticipated fads partly precipitated by DSM-IV: a 20-fold increase in Autism Spectrum Disorder,7 a tripling of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD),8 and a doubling of Bipolar Disorders.9 The most dangerous fad is a 40-fold increase in childhood Bipolar Disorders,10 stimulated, not by DSM-IV, but instead by reckless and misleading drug company marketing. Twenty percent of the U.S. population11 is taking a psychotropic drug; 7% is addicted to one; and overdoses with legal drugs now cause more emergency room visits than overdoses with illegal drugs. — Allen Frances

A friend gave me a drug for attention deficit disorder, because he's afflicted, but I'm not. So what happened to me is I suddenly had an extra-long attention span. People would tell me a story, and it would end, and I'd get all mad. "Come on, man, there has to be more to that story." — Mitch Hedberg

Thoughtful exposure of youngsters to nature can even be a powerful form of therapy for attention-deficit disorders and other maladies. — Richard Louv

The attention deficit disorder of the culture is very distressing in America now and I think it puts a lot of things at risk, not just poetry. — Edward Hirsch

With my recovery programme, I have to do a daily inventory of how my day has been. I am terribly dyslexic and have attention deficit disorder, so I have to carry a tape recorder everywhere I go. — Ozzy Osbourne

There was an advertisement in the newspaper for a teaching position in a school with the worst reputation in town, with the sort of class that no qualified teacher with all the parts of her brain correctly screwed together would voluntarily face. It was attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder before attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder had been invented. "There's no hope for these boys and girls," the headmaster soberly explained in the interview. "This is not education, this is storage." Maybe Sonja understood how it felt to be described as such. The vacant position attracted only one applicant, and she got those boys and girls to read Shakespeare. — Fredrik Backman

When you think about it, attention-deficit order makes a lot of sense. In this country there isn't a lot worth paying attention to. — George Carlin

I'm dyslexic, I have attention-deficit disorder, and I've got something like a hereditary tremor. — Ozzy Osbourne

It has been obvious all along, to anyone paying attention, that the politicians shouting loudest about deficits are actually using deficit hysteria as a cover story for their real agenda, which is top-down class warfare. To put it in Romneyesque terms, it's all about finding an excuse to slash programs that help people who like to watch Nascar events, even while lavishing tax cuts on people who like to own Nascar teams. — Paul Krugman

extensive data also suggest a strong link between attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and processed carbohydrate consumption/insulin production. — Mark Sisson

He downed the last of his coffee, carried his mug over to the pot, poured himself a refill, and returned to the table.
Why, yes, thank you, I'd love some more coffee. Hmmm, Narcisstic Personality Disorder? Attention Deficit Disorder? Or just a typical male? — Lynda Hilburn

Nature-deficit disorder describes the human costs of alienation from nature, among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illness. This disorder can be detected in individuals, families, and communities. — Richard Louv

Since the 1980s, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) has been on the rise, not just among children, but now among the adult population as well.
The sudden rise of adult ADD, while it may have genetic components, certainly receives a major boost from our kinetic, hyper-speed, information-bombarded society. Victims of adult ADD are likely to initiate more tasks and projects that they'll ever finish, get bored easily, seek thrills readily, have a propensity to be late while loathing having to wait, and not be averse to taking foolish risks. — Jeff Davidson

Oh, and they said I have ADD, too." He lit a cigarette, his first of the day, and took a long, grateful drag. "But listen mate, I once sucked a geezer for twenty minutes to get him off. The clock was just over his shoulder and I timed it. Attention deficit?" He blew out a plume of smoke. "I don't think so. — S.A. Reid