Engrossed Quotes & Sayings

Well, from now on, she would never complain when he got so engrossed in his laptop that he failed to hear anything that she was saying. — Jessica Park

It dawned on me I had just ordered the Prince of Teravinea to perform the menial labor of a scullery maid. At first I was ashamed at giving him such an assignment, but when I glanced over at him I noted he was completely engrossed in his chore. I had to turn my face and hide the smile that came to my lips. Only with concentrated effort did I manage to stifle my snicker. — D. Maria Trimble

I'm always reading several books at the same time, depending on how deeply engrossed in it I am, if it's fiction and if it captures me. — Andie MacDowell

The poet speaks to you about the day, and about this very day that is flying. Is there, then, any doubt that for hapless mortals, that is, for men who are engrossed, the fairest day is ever the first to flee? Old age surprises them while their minds are still childish, and they come to it unprepared and unarmed, for they have made no provision for it; they have stumbled upon it suddenly and unexpectedly, they did not notice that it was drawing nearer day by day. Even as conversation or reading or deep meditation on some subject beguiles the traveller, and he finds that he has reached the end of his journey before he was aware that he was approaching it, just so with this unceasing and most swift journey of life, which we make at the same pace whether waking or sleeping; those who are engrossed become aware of it only at the end. — Seneca.

I can read every word of your soul, become deeply engrossed in the study of it until I've comprehended every nuance and detail. But then when I'm done, I'll discard it as easily as if it were a newspaper, shaking my head at how the ink has stained my fingers gray. My desire to know every layer of you isn't feigned, but interest isn't love, and I make no promises of forever. Perhaps I do every so often, but you have no business believing me. — M.E. Thomas

The study of silence has long engrossed me. The matrix of a poet's work consists not only of what is there to be absorbed and worked on, but also of what is missing, desaparecido, rendered unspeakable, thus unthinkable. It is through these invisible holes in reality that poetry makes its way - certainly for women and other marginalized subjects and for disempowered and colonized peoples generally, but ultimately for all who practice any art at its deeper levels. The impulse to create begins - often terribly and fearfully - in a tunnel of silence. Every real poem is the breaking of an existing silence, and the first question we might ask any poem is, What kind of voice is breaking silence, and what kind of silence is being broken? — Adrienne Rich

Engrossed late and soon in professional cares, getting and spending, you may may so lay waste your powers that you may find, too late, with hearts given away, that t here is no place in your habit-stricken souls for those gentler influences which make your life worth living. — William Osler

When you paint, you forget everything except your object. When you are too much engrossed in it, you are lost in it. And when you are lost in it, your ego diminishes. And when the ego diminishes, love infinite appears. — Meher Baba

I try to make the music give people a chance to become engrossed with what they hear enough to possibly experience things they've probably experienced on their own but don't normally let themselves go so as to feel them fully. — Oliver

As the time of their probation was closing, the antediluvians gave themselves up to exciting amusements and festivities. Those who possessed influence and power were bent on keeping the minds of the people engrossed with mirth and pleasure, lest any should be impressed by the last solemn warning. Do we not see the same repeated in our day? While God's servants are giving the message that the end of all things is at hand, the world is absorbed in amusements and pleasure seeking. There is a constant round of excitement that causes indifference to God and prevents the people from being impressed by the truths which alone can save them from the coming destruction. — Ellen G. White

This is a book about texts as well as their authors, it is not a textbook so much as a context book and a pretext book, concerned with settings and motives as well as the works themselves. Its success will be measured by the readers who pick up Plato's Republic, Hobbes's Leviathan, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, and find themselves engrossed rather than baffled - and even when they are baffled, are happy to go on reading, interrogating, and arguing with their authors for themselves. — Alan Ryan

Fully engrossed, until now, in picturing romantic ways of seeing him and getting to know him and certain she would carry them out as soon as she wished, she had been living on that yearning and that hope, without, perhaps, realizing it. But this desire had implanted itself into her by sending out a thousand imperceptible roots, which had plunged into all her most unconscious minutes of happiness or melancholy, filling them with a new sap without her knowing where it came from. And now this desire had been ripped out and tossed away as impossible. She felt lacerated, suffering horribly in her entire self, which had been suddenly uprooted; and from the depths of her sorrow through the abruptly exposed lies of her hope, she saw the reality of her love. — Marcel Proust

I would say, for the moment, that community, at least community larger than the immediate family, consists very largely of imaginative love for people we do not know or whom we know very slightly. This thesis may be influenced by the fact that I have spent literal years of my life lovingly absorbed in the thoughts and perceptions of - who knows it better than I? - people who do not exist. And, just as writers are engrossed in the making of them, readers are profoundly moved and also influenced by the nonexistent, that great clan whose numbers increase prodigiously with every publishing season. I think fiction may be, whatever else, an exercise in the capacity for imaginative love, or sympathy, or identification. — Marilynne Robinson

We usually do not look into what is really there in front of us. We see life through a screen of thoughts and concepts, and we mistake those mental objects for reality. We get so caught up in this endless thought-stream that reality flows by unnoticed. We spend our time engrossed in activity, caught up in an eternal flight from pain and unpleasantness. We spend our energies trying to make ourselves feel better, trying to bury our fears. We are endlessly seeking security. Meanwhile, the world of real experience flows by untouched and untasted. — Henepola Gunaratana

Beatrix tilted her head back to look at him. Perspiration had given his skin the sheen of polished metal, strong masculine features worked in bronze. His expression was engrossed, as if her body fascinated him, as if she were made of some precious substance he had never encountered before. She felt the soft, hot shock of his breath as he bent to kiss the inside of her wrist. He let the tip of his tongue rest against a tiny pulse. So new, this intimacy with him, and yet it was as necessary as the beat of her own heart.
She never wanted to be out of his arms again. She wanted to be with him always. — Lisa Kleypas

The world that you see is like a motion picture. We are engrossed in a film and we have forgotten that we're sitting in a movie theatre. — Frederick Lenz

Tradition holds that Mary was engrossed in reading at the moment the angel made his annunciation. Christ formally announced the opening of his ministry by laying hold of a book. The central epiphany of the Restoration was the result of the reading habits of a young teenager, and Joseph's nephew, Joseph F., followed that same tradition, sitting in his room on the eve of General Conference, reading and reflecting "until the eyes of [his] understanding were opened. — John R. Rosenberg

I used to be that person who read two 400-page books a week. Now I carry around a book with me everywhere I go to try to remember what it feels like to feel that connection within the pages because I can't concentrate to read further than a paragraph, or remember it, for that matter. Every time I see someone engrossed in a novel, it's bittersweet, because I miss what it is like to get lost in the written word. I just want to be able to read like that again. — Unknown

I was so engrossed by the idea that it took me a moment to register that the drivers behind were laying on their horns and I had a green. I hit the gas, rummaged one-handed through the files Cumali had given me, found a note to the medical examiner with her mobile number attached to it, and pulled out my cell phone. I was halfway through dialing when I realized that a woman with a six-year-old child might not appreciate being woken, and, anyway, what was she going to do that late at night? — Terry Hayes

A reader of The Unspeakables recently contacted me. She said she had become so engrossed with the paperback she'd taken it to the top of a Munro whilst climbing on the Isle of Mull. I'm delighted to have three-dimensional circulation as well. — Peter F. Jemison

Ron's ears turned bright red and he become engrossed in a tuft of grass at his feet, which he prodded with his toe 'he must've known I'd run out on you'.
'No', Harry corrected him, 'He must've known you'd always want to come back — J.K. Rowling

Winter, spring, and summer, passed away during my labours; but I did not watch the blossoms or the expanding leaves - sights which before always yielded me supreme delight, so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation. — Gris Grimly

I spent a few minutes fully engrossed in the textbook, having forgotten where I was and why I was there, the highest compliment one can pay a book, I suppose. — Neve Maslakovic

A taste for liberal art is necessary to complete the character of a gentleman, Science alone is hard and mechanical. It exercises the understanding upon things out of ourselves, while it leaves the affections unemployed, or engrossed with our own immediate, narrow interests. — William Hazlitt

Toward Florence he was specially drawn by the fact that Alfieri now lived there; but, as often happens after such separations, the reunion was a disappointment. Alfieri, indeed, warmly welcomed his friend; but he was engrossed in his dawning passion for the Countess of Albany, and — Edith Wharton

Perhaps we all lose our sense of reality to the precise degree to which we are engrossed in our own work, and perhaps that is why we see in the increasing complexity of our mental constructs a means for greater understanding, even while intuitively we know that we shall never be able to fathom the imponderables that govern our course through life. — W.G. Sebald

The things ... are esteemed as the greatest good of all ... can be reduced to these three headings: to wit, Riches, Fame, and Pleasure. With these three the mind is so engrossed that it cannot scarcely think of any other good. — Baruch Spinoza

With 'Gone Girl,' I sat down, and suddenly the end credits were rolling; you just become so engrossed in it. — Atticus Ross

If I'm engrossed in a book, I have to rearrange my thoughts before I can mingle with other people, because otherwise they might think I was strange. — Anne Frank

It may seem strange that one with whom I had held so little communion should have so engrossed my thoughts, but benefits conferred awaken love in some minds, as surely as benefits received in others. — George MacDonald

If I can't laugh at the fool I am I'll despair at the beast I am. You must laugh at yourself, Michael."
"I expect you're right," he said. "One must come out on the other side of despair before one can find that stony sanctuary."
"And laughing at yourself gives you freedom."
"From what?" asked Michael grimly.
"From hating yourself. One can be just as self-engrossed in self-hatred as self-love, and either way be as blind to the quality of those about you ... — Elizabeth Goudge

The world is desperately imperfect. Even if a quarter of the working people were engrossed in new thoughts and inventions and lived off the others, humanity would still gain tremendously thanks to the constant stream of inventions and intellectual work emerging from this horde of people striving upward. — Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Old age is the fourth stage. By the time one reaches this stage of his journey, he must have discovered that the joys available in this world are trivial and fleeting. He must be equipped with the higher knowledge of spiritual joy, available through delving into the inner spring of Bliss. Through his experiences, his heart must have softened and be filled with compassion. He has to be engrossed in promoting the progress of all beings without distinction. And he must be eager to share with others the knowledge he has accumulated and the benefit of his experiences. — Sathya Sai Baba

The use of knowledge in our sex (beside the amusement of solitude) is to moderate the passions and learn to be contented with a small expense, which are the certain effects of a studious life and, it may be, preferable even to that fame which men have engrossed to themselves and will not suffer us to share. — Mary Wortley Montagu

I was engrossed with the book, I was having difficulties with it, and I just didn't notice the years were going by. — Jeffrey Eugenides

We have become so engrossed in the work of the Lord that we have forgotten the Lord of the work. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

Such an act [testifying for an accused prison guard of the Shah's regime] can only be accomplished by someone who is engrossed in literature, has learned that every individual has different dimensions to his personality ... Those who judge must take all aspects of an individual's personality into account. It is only through literature that one can put oneself in someone else's shoes and understand the other's different and contradictory sides and refrain from becoming too ruthless. Outside the sphere of literature only one aspect of individuals is revealed. But if you understand their different dimensions you cannot easily murder them ... If we have learned this one lesson from Dr. A our society would have been in a much better shape today. — Azar Nafisi

Am I mistaken to think that even back then, in the vivid present, the fullness of life stirred our emotions to an extraordinary extent? Has anywhere since so engrossed you in its ocean of details? The detail, the immensity of the detail, the force of the detail,
the weight of the detailthe rich endlessness of detail surrounding you in your young life like the six feet of dirt that'll be packed on your grave when you're dead — Philip Roth

Anger is a consuming thing, a burning takeover.
It sets up shop in your heart and head and murders anything else attempting to makes it way in. Life becomes obsessed with it, clouded with it, engrossed in it. You justify feeling with delusions that you're owed retribution. You condone thoughts and vengeful acts, feeding yourself with the idea that it's warranted.
But that nourishment comes at a price. It costs you pieces of your soul, your love, your worth. You disregard your beliefs, your conscience. You adopt apathy like it's salvation because you know in your heart of hearts that you would deteriorate into nothing without it. Because you don't want to let it go. It makes you feel powerful, that anger. It makes you feel important. So you will let it eat you alive, consume every part of you until all that's left is hollow revenge. — Fisher Amelie

You're bound by the frame. You've become so engrossed in the movie of your life that you have forgotten that you're sitting there watching. — Frederick Lenz

Loving yourself has nothing to do with being selfish, self-centered or self-engrossed. It means that you accept yourself for what you are. Loving yourself means that you accept responsibility for your own development, growth and happiness. — Iyanla Vanzant

I was afraid you had deceased,' he said. 'Or gotten engrossed in a long book. — Garrison Keillor

People who use the sensing mode are engrossed in what is around them, look only for facts, and find it less interesting to deal with ideas or abstractions. Intuitive people like to dwell in the unseen world of ideas and possibilities, distrustful of physical reality. Whatever — Tom Butler-Bowdon

It was always a dream as I was growing up. I would watch movies, mostly American movies, and be so engrossed in those stories, all I wanted to do was be there. I wanted to be part of that romance or that fantasy or be that warrior or that struggling soul who finally makes it good. — Gerard Butler

While writing a novel, I don't read anything new in fiction. I am too engrossed. — Jane Gardam

When I'm filming something, I quite forget that it's all still got to come together and be edited. I'm so engrossed in trying to do the best I can on a day to day basis that I forget that people will see it and judge it. — Yasmin Paige

The music alone wasn't enough. It was great, but when an artist had an amazing look - like the MC5, or the Stooges, or Alice Cooper - you really got sucked in. The wardrobe was so important. At a show, you were engrossed in the music, but you were also engrossed in everything from the haircuts to what they were wearing. — John Varvatos

That day, engrossed together in the fate of the child, he met her mind to mind and fell in love with her, with every grain of his spirit and cell of his body; with the essential finality of death. — Dorothy Dunnett

We are so engrossed with the objects,
or appearances revealed by the light,
that we pay no attention to the light. — Ramana Maharshi

I'm not at all snobby about book prizes and how they pollute the world of literature. Just like with the Olympics, a little bit of competition gets people truly engrossed in the business of literature. — Emma Donoghue

There was one sure way to avoid being assigned an impromptu chore in our house - be it taking out the trash or cleaning your room - and that was to have your face buried in a book. Like churches during the Middle Ages, books conferred instant sanctuary. Once you entered one, you couldn't be disturbed. They didn't give you immunity from prosecution if you'd done something wrong - just a temporary reprieve. But we quickly learned you had to both look and be completely engrossed - just flipping pages didn't count. — Will Schwalbe

How many men I know who are earning dollars aplenty, but who are really earning little of what counts. They are so overwhelmingly engrossed in business that they get nothing from their dollars. The Juggernaut of dollar-making has crushed out of them every capacity for genuine enjoyment, every grace, every unselfish sentiment and instinct. — B.C. Forbes

When the mind and the Self (Soul) become engrossed (tanmayakar) only then it is called artadhyan (mournful contemplation that hurts the self), and also one does not become aware that artadhyan has occurred. And if one realizes that artadhyan has occurred, then it is not called artadhyan; then it is the mind. — Dada Bhagwan

When I get lost in a book, I forget about all my problems because I'm so engrossed in the character's lives. — Kaitlyn Hoyt

They were readers for whom literature was a drug, each complex plot line delivering a new high, suspending them above reality, allowing them a magical crossover ... They had spoken often, with rueful honesty, of how the books they read represented escape, offered pathways to literary landscapes that intrigued and engrossed ... From childhood on, books had been the hot air balloons that carried them above the angry mutterings of quarreling parents, schoolyard rejections, academic boredom ... They were of a kind, readers from birth. — Gloria Goldreich

Pray, how violent was Mr. Bingley's love?" "I never saw a more promising inclination; he was growing quite inattentive to other people, and wholly engrossed by her. Every time they met, it was more decided and remarkable. At — Jane Austen

At the next bend I had a brisk argument with two fat peasant ladies, balancing
baskets of fruit on their heads, who were wildly indignant at Widdle. He had
crept up on them when they were engrossed in conversation and after sniffing at
them had lived up to his name over their skirts and legs. The argument as to
whose fault it was kept all of us happily occupied for ten minutes, and was then
continued as I walked on down the road, until we were separated by such a
distance that we could no longer hear and appreciate each other's insults — Gerald Durrell

To love, we need to be sensitive to those around us, which is impossible if we are racing through life engrossed in all the things we need to do before sunset. In fact, I would go to the extent of saying that a person who is always late will find it difficult to love; he will be in too much of a hurry. — Eknath Easwaran

I walk around engrossed in my stories and worlds, and I love losing myself in them! — Samuel Colbran

Don't be too engrossed with things of the world; discover your purpose in life — Sunday Adelaja

We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything, than when we are at play. — Charles E. Schaefer

The insomnia I am talking about results from a mild state of possession, harmless to those around you, who sometimes even fail to notice it. It usually comes when you are completely engrossed in your work and overtakes you so completely that every aspect of your daily life becomes mechanical and provides only a colorless backdrop to action occurring only in your mind. It matters not whether at this time you are asleep or awake. The secret life pulses within you, and when you wake in the middle of the night you realize there is no way to stem its flow. — Lyudmila Ulitskaya

The more I learned, the more conscious did I become of the fact that I was ridiculous. So that for me my years of hard work at the university seem in the end to have existed for the sole purpose of demonstrating and proving to me, the more deeply engrossed I became in my studies, that I was an utterly absurd person — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

You come home to find your 17-year-old daughter engrossed in a book. Which would delight you more - if it were 'Twilight' or 'Middlemarch?' — Michael Gove

By stressing intrinsic value in thought. And it is true that when men have become engrossed in practical devices they are apt to narrow their field of vision and lose sight of the interconnection of the various branches of knowledge. More than that, as is now the case, they will even forget the larger principles they have applied, and on which their well-being depends. — Isabel Paterson

There is no existence so content as that whose present is engrossed by employment, and whose future is filled by some strong hope, the truth of which is never proved. Toil and illusion are the only secrets to make life tolerable ... — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Yet Theo had become engrossed in his own tale, transporting himself back to the night of which he spoke. In the distance, he could again see the faces he had encountered on that fateful night, the twisted bodies and pained expressions of the men who no longer walked the realms of men, but those of the underworld gods. — A.H. Septimius

Perhaps the basic thing which contributes to charm is the ability to forget oneself and be engrossed in other people. — Eleanor Roosevelt

On one occasion when [William] Smart found him engrossed with his fundamental theory, he asked Eddington how many people he thought would understand what he was writing-after a pause came the reply, 'Perhaps seven.' — Arthur Eddington

Perhaps the greatest reading pleasure has an element of self-annihilation. To be so engrossed that you barely know you exist. — Ian McEwan

I believe, indeed, that what I could not refrain from saying to him on this head had the effect of inducing him to push on. While, therefore, I cannot but lament the most unfortunate and bloody events which immediately arose from my advice, I must still be allowed to feel some degree of gratification at having been instrumental, however remotely, in opening to the eye of science one of the most intensely exciting secrets which has ever engrossed its attention. — Edgar Allan Poe

A man engrossed in sensual pleasures may form a mistaken out look
upon life and
think that he enjoys life more than others do. But soon he realizes his
mistake as not long
after this he is reduced to a mere slave to his blind passions,
He is doomed to a perpetual
life of deprivation and restlessness, for animal desires once run ra
mpant are never
satisfied: they are rather sharpened all the more and degrade ma
n to lower levels of
animalism where all his efforts are focused on one object: how to
derive the maximum
possible sensual pleasure in life? — Mohammad Qutub

Creativity arises out of the state of thoughtless presence in which you are much more awake than when you are engrossed in thinking. — Eckhart Tolle

I do not mean to say that I viewed those desires of mine that deviated from accepted standards as normal and orthodox; nor do I mean that I labored under the mistaken impression that my friends possessed the same desires. Surprisingly enough, I was so engrossed in tales of romance that I devoted all my elegant dreams to thoughts of love between man and maid, and to marriage, exactly as though I were a young girl who knew nothing of the world. I tossed my love for Omi onto the rubbish heap of neglected riddles, never once searching deeply for its meaning. Now when I write the word love, when I write affection, my meaning is totally different from my understanding of the words at that time. I never even dreamed that such desires as I had felt toward Omi might have a significant connection with the realities of my life. — Yukio Mishima

Sometimes in the late evenings one walks busily up and down the ward doing this and that, forgetting that there is anything beyond the drawn blinds, engrossed in the patients, one's tasks - bed-making, washing, one errand and another - and then suddenly a blind will blow out and almost up to the ceiling, and through it you will catch a glimpse that makes you gasp, of a black night crossed with bladed searchlights, of a moon behind a crooked tree.
The lifting of the blind is a miracle; I do not believe in the wind. — Enid Bagnold

Thought is actually something that is dead, it is not a living thing. If 'oneself' gets engrossed in what is dead, then it will become alive. — Dada Bhagwan

Why me?" she finally asked.
Sighing, I touched the end of her hair, fingering it slightly. It felt so silky. "You were the first person I saw at this school. I'd parked in the lot and was walking past the auditorium and saw this gorgeous girl come out of the music room. The sun hit your stunning red hair, and it shone so brightly it almost looked like you had a halo. You were staring down at some music you were holding, and you started humming something. I froze. I just stood there and watched you walk by. You were so engrossed you didn't even notice me." I twisted the loop of her hair around my finger. — Lacey Weatherford

NOT to my contemporaries, not to my compatriots but to
mankind I commit my now completed work in the confidence that it will not be without value for them, even
if this should be late recognised, as is commonly the lot
of what is good. For it cannot have been for the passing
generation, engrossed with the delusion of the moment,
that my mind, almost against my will, has uninterruptedly
stuck to its work through the course of a long life.
preface to the second edition of the world as will and representation — Arthur Schopenhauer

You do it for the highs, when you're totally engrossed and everything's flowing and whatever you want, you get. It's like magic. That's why you play the game. That's what it's for. That's why you work. — Greg Rusedski

This is the unmistakable teaching of the Gita. He who gives up action falls. He who gives up only the reward rises. But renunciation of fruit in no way means indifference to the result. In regard to every action one must know the result that is expected to follow, the means thereto, and the capacity for it. He, who, being thus equipped, is without desire for the result and is yet wholly engrossed in the due fulfillment of the task before him is said to have renounced the fruits of his action. — Mahatma Gandhi

I have known not a few men who, after reaching the summits of business success, found themselves miserable on attaining retirement age. They were so exclusively engrossed in their day to day affairs that they had no time for friend making. — B.C. Forbes

What she had come to understand ... was that mourning was no crime. it wasn't her feeling all boo-hoo sorry for herself, or being disgustingly self - engrossed, it was what you had to do to go on. — Julia Gregson

Sumire was a hopeless romantic, a bit set in her ways - innocent of the ways of the world, to put a nice spin on it. Start her talking and she'd go on nonstop, but if she was with someone she didn't get along with - most people in the world, in other words - she barely opened her mouth. She smoked too much, and you could count on her to lose her ticket every time she took the train. She'd get so engrossed in her thoughts at times she'd forget to eat, and she was as thin as one of those war orphans in an old Italian film - like a stick with eyes. I'd love to show you a photo of her but I don't have any. She hated having her photograph taken - no desire to leave behind for posterity a Portrait of the Artist as a Young (Wo)Man. — Haruki Murakami

Whatever the situation may be, in the recollection of death there is reward and merit. For even the man engrossed in the world benefits from it by acquiring an aversion to this world, since it spoils his contentment and the fullness of his pleasure; and everything which spoils for man his pleasures and his appetites is one of the means of deliverance. — Al-Ghazali

I enjoy a good cliffhanger. As a reader, I relish that nervous feeling you get when you're engrossed in a story, but in the back of your mind you're aware that there aren't that many pages left. How will it end? Everything can't be wrapped up! This can't end! Then it does, and your heart seems to stop. — Kresley Cole

Please be careful of becoming so immersed and engrossed in pixels, texting, ear buds, Twittering, online social networking, and potentially addictive uses of media and the Internet that you fail to recognize the importance of your physical body and miss the richness of person-to-person communication. Beware of the digital displays and data in many forms of computer-mediated interaction that can displace the full range of physical capacity and experience. — David A. Bednar

Are non-readers totally clueless about how obnoxious it is to be engrossed in your book only to find someone suddenly talking to you? — Stephanie Morrill

Austin was engrossed in some mobile gaming device. "No, no, bad portal," he scolded, totally oblivious to the world. "Stop - evil - eurgh! Suck my flagellated balls, douchenozzle! — Robyn Schneider

The collective disease of humanity is that people are so engrossed in what happens, so hypnotized by the world of fluctuating forms, so absorbed in the content of their lives, they have forgotten the essence, that which is beyond content, beyond form, beyond thought. They are so consumed by time that they have forgotten eternity, which is their origin, their home, their destiny. Eternity is the living reality of who you are. — Eckhart Tolle

You cannot write a book unless it is totally inhabiting your imagination and you are totally engrossed with it. Which is a kind word for obsession. — Kate Forsyth

Mostly things are not that way, that simple and pure, with so much focus given to each syllable of life as life sings itself. But that kind of attention is the prize. To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own ass
seeing things in such a narrow and darkly narcissistic way that it presents a colo-rectal theology, offering hope to no one. — Anne Lamott

And as experienced as I am, it still summons an act of bravery from me, and I like that. I like the idea of setting an example - proving that it is acceptable to be alone in a public place where everyone else is in groups, and to just be sitting there eating, not having to be engrossed in anything else. — Anneli Rufus

There was nothing on any of the canvasses that she would have liked to hide or conceal, nor was she ashamed of being thus exposed through her work, good or bad though it might be, the essence, the unique flavour of days when she had been happily engrossed in recreating a face or a garment, in inventing an effective light, in applying an expressive glaze. — Anna Banti

How idle a boast, after all, is the immortality of a name! Time is ever silently turning over his pages; we are too much engrossed by the story of the present to think of the character and anecdotes that gave interest to the past; and each age is a volume thrown aside and forgotten. — Washington Irving

But I could see that she was not having the same experience as me, she was lying as before, with eyes closed, mouth half-open, breathing heavily, engrossed in what I had been engrossed, but was not any longer. — Karl Ove Knausgard

If you get too engrossed and involved and concerned in regard to things over which you have no control, it will adversely affect the things over which you have control. — John Wooden

It is painful to watch children trying to show off for parents who are engrossed in their cell phones. Children are nostalgic for the 'good old days' when parents used to read to them without the cell phone by their side or watch football games or Disney movies without having the BlackBerry handy. — Sherry Turkle

Let's begin with a quotation from mindfulness expert and teacher Bhante Henepola Gunaratana. It beautifully encapsulates what deceptive brain messages are, what they do to you, and how they keep you from following the path of your true self: We see life through a screen of thoughts and concepts, and we mistake those [thoughts] for reality. We get so caught up in this endless thought-stream that reality flows by unnoticed. We spend our time engrossed in activity, caught up in an eternal pursuit of pleasure and gratification and eternal flight from pain and unpleasantness. We spend all our energies trying to make ourselves feel better, trying to bury our fears, endlessly seeking security.16 To phrase it another way: We spend a considerable amount of our time engrossed in following deceptive brain messages until we begin to see them for what they are and value our true emotions and needs. — Jeffrey M. Schwartz

'Anna Karenina.' I read it in college. I was so engrossed that I couldn't stop reading it and neglected all my other studies. I would go to the library even on nice warm weekends and just lock myself up. I think that was the first time that I felt transformed by a book. — Jonathan Dee

Christianity is not engrossed by this transitory world, but measures all things by the thought of eternity. — John Gresham Machen