Good Distraction Quotes & Sayings

It's never too late to tell a good story, to create a new myth that rouses us from our intoxicated slumber, that lifts us above the din of confusion and arms us against the weapons of mass distraction. — Derek Rydall

So, even for those of us who can't personally witness Salome's dance, the fifth veil surely will fall. It will fall at the moment of our death. As we lie there, helpless, beyond distraction, electricity stealing out of our brains like a con man stealing out of a sucker's neighborhood, it will occur to many of us that everything we ever did, we did for money. And at that instant, right before the stars blink off, we will, according to what else we may have learned in life, burn with an unendurable regret
or have us a good silent laugh at our own expense. — Tom Robbins

Practice being fully present with something. Perhaps you may find something of God there. Go outside and look at the stars. Not for just a few seconds - lay a blanket in the yard, lie on your back and really look at the stars. Try to let your heart feel the incomprehensible size and grandeur of the universe. Take the time to really attend to a meal, a good book, a piece of music, or a sunrise. The point is to be fully present, to not be swept up into the distraction of a thousand voices, but to learn how to simply and fully attend to one. Then, when one enters back into the noisy world that we live in, even the million colors together are more vibrant because you have learned to better see color in its essence. To truly see is to find hope. — Michael Gungor

A good portfolio manager knows which companies to keep and which ones to let go. Many a GP has struggled with portfolio companies that cannot meet their value-creation milestones, or raise additional follow-on rounds of capital, or generate target returns in a time span of, say, five to seven years. The faster you recognize those losses, the better it is."
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"As David Cowan says, "Just focus on your top five - the rest is distraction." The harder part of the investor's discipline is to know when to quit."
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"You have to constantly scan all of those things and be willing to adjust your own sense of what's a reasonable outcome and move the company into a position where it has the maximum chance to succeed. "
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"Time is your enemy: Portfolio companies always take twice as much capital and twice as long to exit. Early-stage companies rarely meet milestones as planned and always burn cash faster than anticipated. — Mahendra Ramsinghani

Busy is good, isn't it? Busy means we're hard at it, achieving our ends or "goals." Haven't had time to stop, or look around or think. That's considered the sign of a life well lived ... Suppose, though, you're not sure that what you're doing is at all worthwhile. Suppose you blundered into it over a spoonful of lime pickle. It's easy, it pays quite well. But really it's a distraction. It stops you thinking about what you ought to be doing. — Sebastian Faulks

We did a two month tour with Taj Mahal that was really healing and cathartic and a good distraction after my brother passed away. Then I knew I wanted to take a year off, and it was really nice to have that chance to fall apart. — Bonnie Raitt

The Mexican people, once they have happened on a good food, he thought, flay the thing to distraction. Ham and eggs every morning now for two weeks. Since arriving in Guanajuato, bearing his typewriter, it had been the same thing each morning at nine. He stared at his plate, gently grieved.
("The Candy Skull") — Ray Bradbury

Like all good things, prayer requires some discipline. Yet I believe that life with God should seem more like friendship than duty. Prayer includes moments of ecstasy and also dullness, mindless distraction and acute concentration, flashes of joy and bouts of irritation. In other words, prayer has features in common with all relationships that matter. — Philip Yancey

I don't think polarization is some kind of grand distraction. It's real. People have different commitments, believe in different things and principles, different visions of the good life ... but there is also a degree to which all the really big, successful reform movements in the country had extremely bizarre ideological coalitions. — Chris Hayes

I will have a deeper and personal relationship with my life. I will not have a casual fling with my life. I will find peace in that. I want to contribute to the world around me. Casual debauchery is not fulfilling. I want to send good messages and good meanings along the way. The journey is about spreading love and understanding. Not using each other. Not distraction. Tools for presence in life. I want to bond with like-minded people who echo my appreciation and awareness for them. — Hannah Hart

Are there so many fascinating, exciting things to do or so many challenges pressing down upon you that it is hard to keep focused on that which is essential? When things of the world crowd in, all too often the wrong things take highest priority. Then it is easy to forget the fundamental purpose of life. Satan has a powerful tool to use against good people. It is distraction. He would have good people fill life with 'good things' so there is no room for the essential ones. Have you unconsciously been caught in that trap? — Richard G. Scott

How can you say anything other than Ratatouille is Pixar's best movie? Your a chef, for Christ's sake," Sue said.
Lou smiled at Sue's accusatory tone. She needed this distraction.
Harley rolled his eyes and said, "You're letting your biases show, Sue. Up uses music better- like a character. The opening fifteen minutes is some of the best filmmaking- ever. And who doesn't love a good squirrel joke?"
"But Ratatouille brings it all back to food." Sue waved a carrot in the air to emphasize her point. "They made you want to eat food cooked by a rat! I'd eat the food; it looked magnificent. That rat cooked what he loved; what tasted good. Like I've been telling Lou, we should cook food from the heart, not just the cookbook. — Amy E. Reichert

Is everybody in? Is everybody in? Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin. The entertainment for this evening is not new, you've seen this entertainment through and through you have seen your birth, your life, your death ... you may recall all the rest. Did you have a good world when you died? -enough to base a movie on?? — Jim Morrison

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

This sordid affair has become an unacceptable distraction for Representative Weiner, his family, his constituents and the House - and for the good of all, he should step aside and address those things that should be most important - his and his family's well-being. — Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Well, let's look on the bright side," I said, deciding he needed a distraction. "Don't." "The good news is that we'll probably be either rescued or dead before we have to worry about serious hypothermia. There's always a silver lining, Hunter. — Joanna Wylde

In politics, nothing good ever comes from the unexpected. — Chris Matthews

Young girls today were more sensible, more sophisticated. Nowadays they worried more about their exam results and did their best to ensure they would have a decent career. For them, going out with boys was simply a game, a distraction based as much as on narcissism as on sexual pleasure. Later, they would try to make a good marriage, basing their decision on a range of social and professional criteria as well as shared interests and tastes. Of course, in doing this, they cut themselves from any possibility of happiness - a condition indissociable from traditional and transient emotions which are incompatible with the practice of reason - but in doing so they hoped to escape the moral and emotional suffering which had so tortured their forebears. — Michel Houellebecq

..the good life warrants an ongoing struggle to be clear about what's important, and to seek it with lucidity and passion; not to be distracted by false ambitions, or waylaid by dissipated conscious — Damon Young

As good luck would have it, comes in one Mistress Page, gives intelligence of Ford's approach, and in her invention, and Ford's wife's distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket. — William Shakespeare

What good is there in being blind, you ask? Well, maybe it's to see the beauty on the inside without being vainly distracted, or superficially blinded, by the ugly on the outside. — Criss Jami

My good friend the Governor said I could settle down at Port Stanley and take things quietly for a few weeks. The street of that port is about a mile and a half long. It has the slaughterhouse at one end and the graveyard at the other. The chief distraction is to walk from the slaughterhouse to the graveyard. For a change one may walk from the graveyard to the slaughterhouse. — Ernest Shackleton

What else is God good for other than a distraction from the mire we're all stranded in? — Hannah Kent

Far from the madding crowd is a mistake on a honeymoon ... Solitude! Wherever you are, if you're on a honeymoon, you'll get quite as much solitude as is good for you every twenty-four hours. Constant change and distraction
that's what wants arranging for. Solitude will arrange itself. — Arnold Bennett

It is good to love in a moderate degree; but it is not good to love to distraction. — Plautus

But it does take the determination that you're going to put your thoughts upon something that does feel good. And so, here we're going to make a very bold statement: any disease could be healed in a matter of days, any disease, if distraction from it could occur and a different vibration dominate - and the healing time is about how much mix-up there is in all of that. — Esther Hicks

Thinking is good for your mind, but too much thinking leads to distraction. — Ehabib

People won't admit it, they're too busy grabbing to see that the lights have fused. They can't see the darkness and the spider-face beyond and the great web of it all. That there's always this if you scratch at the surface of happiness and goodness.
The black and the black and the black. — John Fowles

By going with him, I would have simply imposed myself on him; I would have been a distraction. I helped him follow his heart and his greater good. — Kavita Kane

Hey kid. Remember when John asked you to be in charge of watering the plants outside our door?'
Eden frowns for a second, digging through his memories, and then a grin lights us his face. 'I did a pretty good job, didn't I?'
'You built that little makeshift catapult in front of our door.' I close my eyes and indulge in the memory, a temporary distraction from all the pain. 'Yeah, I remember that thing. You kept lobbing water balloons at those poor flowers. Did they have any petals when you were done? Oh man, John was so pissed.' He was even madder because Eden was only four at the time, well, how do you punish your wide-eyed baby brother. — Marie Lu

The Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger (tutor to Nero) complained that his peers were wasting time and money accumulating too many books, admonishing that "the abundance of books is a distraction." Instead, Seneca recommended focusing on a limited number of good books, to be read thoroughly and repeatedly. — Daniel J. Levitin

Immersing oneself in the problems of a book is a good way to keep from thinking of love. — Orhan Pamuk

Learn how to delegate. If you try to do everything yourself, you will end up really stressed. Delegate what can be delegated so you can focus on what really does need your attention. Write down all the important things you need to do. No matter how good your memory is, a little distraction can take your mind off the important stuff. However, no matter what distractions you may have, the list will always remind you of what you need to do. — Amber Brooks

I guess I was actually sort of grateful that someone else was taking over my life. I mean, I'm obviously pretty terrible at managing my own life, so it was nice to know that it was in good hands. But also it was nice to have all these concrete tasks to do and be sort of distracted and consumed by them. It kept me from thinking about every depressing and weird thing that was going on at that time. — Jesse Andrews

If you set yourself to your present task along the path of true reason, with all determination, vigour,and good will: if you admit no distraction, but keep your own divinity pure and standing strong, as if you had to surrender it right now; if you grapple this to you, expecting nothing, shirking nothing, but self-content with each present action taken in accordance with nature and a heroic truthfulness in all that you say and mean - then you will lead a good life. And nobody is able to stop you. — Marcus Aurelius

Teaching is a good distraction, and I am in contact with young people, which is very gratifying. — Manuel Puig

"Hello there, cutie," he drawled. "I thought I smelled you."
"How's the leg?"
His grin turned a little less friendly, more bared teeth than smile. "Hurt like a son of a b*tch."
"Sorry about that."
"I bet you are."
He stepped closer. I stepped back.
"Don't worry," he said. "I forgive you for the leg. I like a little spirit in my fillies." His look sent a shiver through me. "Makes them more fun to break. Now where's that big ox of a boyfriend?"
He moved toward me, I sidestepped, leading him away.
"You wanna play chase, cutie? I'm really good at it. How about we let your boyfriend and Ramon have their fun while we have ours and - ?" — Kelley Armstrong

I know what the problem is, of course. The disorientation, the distraction, the difficulty focusing - all classic Phase One signs of deliria. But I don't care. If pneumonia felt this good I'd stand out in the snow in the winter with bare feet and no coat, or march into the hospital and kiss pneumonia patients — Lauren Oliver

When we're there I'll create a distraction. You have to keep your wits about you, Lady Rogan. Watch me all the time. When I make my move, you make it with me and we run."
I blinked owlishly, hoping I'd heard wrong. "That's your big plan? A distraction?"
He smiled cheekily at me. "Yes. It's good, right?"
"You're going to get us killed."
"Well, since you got us kidnapped in the first place, I think it's only fair. — Samantha Young

What does normally activate the fear of happiness is an experience that is judged to be too much, too big, or too good to be true. I have coached many people who have gotten themselves out of a hole, and are about to be truly happy again, when suddenly they turn around and run back into the hole. Sometimes it's a different hole, perhaps a slightly more interesting one, but it is still a hole. And if it's not a hole they find, then it's a drama, or a crisis, or a health issue, or some other distraction. This looks like bad luck, and as if some external force has intervened, but I assure you what's really happened is that your ego has performed a maneuver that I call the Ego U-Turn. — Robert Holden

Having a set of goals is a good thing for many people. But when a goal takes your focus off God and His daily intentions for you, it can cause trouble. Being driven by my plans can shift the focus of my heart from following God and being open to His unfolding invitations, to following only that which leads me closer to my desires. For me, I started falling into a trap of making plans each day around what I wanted to see happen. Anything that wasn't part of my plan became a distraction and an unwelcome interruption. — Lysa TerKeurst

The saints, too, had wandering minds. The saints, too, had constantly to recall their constantly wandering mind-child home. They became saints because they continued to go after the little wanderer, like the Good Shepherd. — Peter Kreeft

I needed a distraction. A drink, a good tumble, anything - even this sure-to-be- trouble punk show. — Alexandra Martin

I need distractions. Good distractions, not bad ones. A good distraction for me is a great play. — Danny Aiello

She wondered what it was about storytelling that made people want it almost as much as food and water, even more so in bad times than good. Movies had never drawn more patrons than during the Great Depression. Book sales often improved in a recession. The need went beyond a mere desire for entertainment and distraction from one's troubles. It was more profound and mysterious than that. — Dean Koontz

Essentially, the popular musician in America must learn that his basic job is to entertain people, to make them forget their sorrows for a moment or two; in the same sense that any popular art form must aim at the same distraction value. Any such job as that is basically a young man's business. It takes a young man's energy to go traveling around the country, night after night in a different place, prancing and cavorting around in front of mobs of people all out to try to forget their problems for an evening. And for a young man it can be a good enough way of life, if he happens to like it. — Artie Shaw

3-D is a waste of a perfectly good dimension. Hollywood's current crazy stampede toward it is suicidal. It adds nothing essential to the moviegoing experience. For some, it is an annoying distraction. For others, it creates nausea and headaches. — Roger Ebert

The Puritan, of course, is not entirely devoid of aesthetic feeling. He has a taste for good form; he responds to style; he is even capable of something approaching a purely aesthetic emotion. But he fears this aesthetic emotion as an insinuating distraction from his chief business in life: the sober consideration of the all-important problem of conduct. Art is a temptation, a seduction, a Lorelei, and the Good Man may safely have traffic with it when it is broken to moral uses
in other words, when its innocence is pumped out of it, and it is purged of gusto. — H.L. Mencken

A friend that complains virtually about everything is no good a friend but a distraction. — Abdulazeez Henry Musa

Even a good family can become a trap for one's destiny when the family becomes your aim — Sunday Adelaja

Learning is an ornament to a good woman, not a distraction. — Philippa Gregory

This is not a problem. I'm making everybody very calm, distracted by my bad results and then I'm going to shoot. One good result and I'm coming back. This is a distraction, it's the calm before the storm, — Ernests Gulbis

Mothers who know do less. They permit less of what will not bear good fruit eternally. They allow less media in their homes, less distraction, less activity that draws their children away from their home. Mothers who know are willing to live on less and consume less of the world's goods in order to spend more time with their children - more time eating together, more time working together, more time reading together, more time talking, laughing, singing, and exemplifying. These mothers choose carefully and do not try to choose it all. — Julie B. Beck

Writing a novel- actually picking the words and filling in paragraphs- is a tremendous pain in the ass. Now that TV's so good and the Internet is an endless forest of distraction, it's damn near impossible. That should be taken into account when ranking the all-time greats. Somebody like Charles Dickens, for example, who had nothing better to do except eat mutton and attend public hangings, should get very little credit. — Steve Hely

People really get myopic as they get older. We're not a culture that encourages dreaming or distraction. We're not ever good at just being. I remember reading some Adrienne Rich quote where she talks about how important it was just to watch bubbles rise in a glass. — Karen Russell

Everywhere means nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends. And the same thing must hold true of men who seek intimate acquaintance with no single author, but visit them all in a hasty and hurried manner. 3. Food does no good and is not assimilated into the body if it leaves the stomach as soon as it is eaten; nothing hinders a cure so much as frequent change of medicine; no wound will heal when one salve is tried after another; a plant which is often moved can never grow strong. There is nothing so efficacious that it can be helpful while it is being shifted about. And in reading of many books is distraction. — Seneca.

Hard work's a good distraction. — Scott Westerfeld

I don' mean to be at all ... St. Francis of Assisi or something, but anyone can shout obscenities. Why should I become like her? Why not think that sometimes- just sometimes- you can overcome evil with silence? And let people hear their hatefulness in their own ears, without distraction. Maybe goodness is enough to expose evil for what it really is, sometimes. Rather than trying to stop evil with more evil. Not that I'm good. I don't think I'm good. — Sylvain Reynard

Shall we try to find a common basis by asking of ourselves what ought to be the chief aim of the legislator in making laws and in the organization of a State, - what is the greatest good, and what is the greatest evil, and then consider whether our previous description has the stamp of the good or of the evil? By all means. Can there be any greater evil than discord and distraction and plurality where unity ought to reign? or any greater good than the bond of unity? There cannot. And there is unity where there is community of pleasures and pains - where all the citizens are glad or grieved on the same occasions of joy and sorrow? No doubt. Yes; — Plato

Not every affection which seems good is to be immediately followed. Neither is every opposite affection to be immediately avoided. Sometimes it is expedient to use restraint even in good desires and wishes, lest through importunity you fall into distraction of mind, lest through want of discipline you become a stumbling block to others. — Thomas A Kempis

If you have a story to tell, put it out there. Get the thing done. No excuses. No procrastinating. No apologies. It will never be as good as you want it to be, so forget about perfection. Just be satisfied that you've done the best work you can do at this stage in your life as an author. Then roll the rocket onto the launch pad and fire it off. After that, write another story. Always keep going. Move fast. Stay one step ahead of the forces of distraction and self-doubt. Love your characters enough to give them a good home. Love your readers enough to give them a place of refuge from life's tragedies, big and small. And love the world you live in enough to make it the world of your dreams. — James Hampton

To her lover a beautiful woman is a delight; / To a monk she's a distraction; / To a mosquito, a good meal. It makes the point well: how things seem depends on the lens or filter through which we look at them. — Tara Bennett-Goleman

Being busy is a distraction and I am sure that doing nothing, resting and sleeping are all good cures for modern life. I am not suggesting we all do nothing but sleep, however, sometimes stopping long enough to 'be' can be very powerful. — Joanna Runciman