It Is Good To Focus Quotes & Sayings

We all want to live in a world where we can make a difference ... That's why Spider-Man fights the good fight. Or Captain Marvel. Or me. Or ... There are a lot of us. And we don't all wear masks these days. Iron Man went public. So did Captain America. Others. Probably because it's harder to keep secrets in an internet surveillance age. But I think some of it, too, is that the ethical paradox can wear you down. No one on the white-hat side has ever hidden his or her identity with less than noble intent: to make the fight about something bigger than us. To represent a greater justice, where the focus can be on right and wrong ... and not on whether the bad guys will exact reprisal on those close to us. And sometimes you have to lie ... because you can justify a lie if lives are riding on it. Even as you fight for, as the saying goes, truth and justice ... even if you're a lawyer who has sworn to live by the truth ... you willingly bear false witness. — Mark Waid

It is the importance of this quality of generosity in fiction that requires a measure of childishness in the writer. People who have strong mental focus and a sense of purpose in their lives, people who have respect for all that grownups generally respect (earning a good living, the flag, the school system, those who are richer than oneself, those who are beloved and famous, such as movie stars), are unlikely ever to make it through the many revisions it takes to tell a story beautifully, without visible tricks, nor would they be able to tolerate the fame and fortune of those who tell stories stupidly, with hundreds of tricks, all of them old and boring to the discriminating mind. First, with his stubborn churlishness the good writer scoffs at what the grownups are praising, then, with his childish forgetfulness and indifference to what sensible people think, he goes back to his foolish pastime, the making of real art. — John Gardner

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

A lot of times, I'll have a goal, I'll start writing, and I'll end up in some far off place, which is good. It's nice to have a focus, but letting the lyrics write themselves where they need to go is important. — James Hetfield

In terms of professionally what I want to do, I want to play 15-plus more years, get to the Hall of Fame, and win a lot of championships and all that. I'd love to be the owner of a team one day. But it's way bigger than that. For me, my vision is how can I affect somebody positively every day? When you focus on other people, somehow good things happen to you. I think that's my goal. That's my vision. — Russell Wilson

Nothing should be used anywhere that is not edible. We should not clean our house with substances that are toxic carcinogens. It's not necessary. There are anti-bacterial agents, and antiseptic agents, that are non-toxic. That's really our focus, and my personal focus: to make consumer goods that don't just smell good, but taste good, and can be used to anoint one's self and also the environment in which you are living in. — Horst Rechelbacher

People who complain often say things like, 'I'm not being negative, I'm just being realistic.' Really? How is it anymore 'realistic' to focus on and talk about things that discourage us and make us feel bad, than to focus on and talk about the POSITIVE aspects of life that make us feel GOOD? Both area equally REALISTIC, but which you choose to dwell on has a very different impact on the quality of YOUR life. — Hal Elrod

Make excellent mistakes.
Too many people spend their time avoiding mistakes. They're so concerned about being wrong, about messing up, that they never try anything
which means they never do anything. Their focus is avoiding failure. But that's actually a crummy way to achieve success. The most successful people spectacular mistakes
huge, honking screwups! why? They're trying to do something big, but each time they make a mistake, they get a little better and move a little closer to excellence.
Making mistakes seems risky. It is/ But it's more risky not to.
I'm not talking about random, stupid, thoughtless blunders, though. I'm talking about good mistakes.
Mistakes come from having high aspirations, from trying to do something nobody else has done. — Daniel H. Pink

It's not good to focus on one person or two persons about being your rivals. The important thing is just to train hard and be ready for the competition and to prepare for the races so that in case of anything that comes out, you are able to handle it. — David Rudisha

For a good chunk of Israelis, it doesn't matter who is in power when it comes to dealing with the Palestinians. Their focus was more on economic issues. — Jonathan Katz

You should focus relentlessly on something you're good at doing, but before that you must think hard about whether it will be valuable in the future. For the startup world, this means you should not necessarily start your own company, even if you are extraordinarily talented. If anything, too many people are starting their own companies today. People who understand the power law will hesitate more than others when it comes to founding a new venture: they know how tremendously successful they could become by joining the very best company while it's growing fast. The power law means that differences between companies will dwarf the differences in roles inside companies. You could have 100% of the equity if you fully fund your own venture, but if it fails you'll have 100% of nothing. Owning just 0.01% of Google, by contrast, is incredibly valuable (more than $35 million as of this writing). — Peter Thiel

Remember that there are two kinds of beauty: one of the soul and the other of the body. That of the soul displays its radiance in intelligence, in chastity, in good conduct, in generosity, and in good breeding, and all these qualities may exist in an ugly man. And when we focus our attention upon that beauty, not upon the physical, love generally arises with great violence and intensity. I am well aware that I am not handsome, but I also know that I am not deformed, and it is enough for a man of worth not to be a monster for him to be dearly loved, provided he has those spiritual endowments I have spoken of. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

I focus on a simple message: when you leave the two-thirds of Americans without college degrees out of your vision of the good life, they notice. And when elites commit to equality for many different groups but arrogantly dismiss "the dark rigidity of fundamentalist rural America,"6 this is a recipe for extreme alienation among working-class whites. Deriding "political correctness" becomes a way for less-privileged whites to express their fury at the snobbery of more-privileged whites. I don't like what this dynamic is doing to America. There are two reasons I think we have to try to replace it with a healthier one. The first is ethical: I am committed to social equality, not for some groups but for all groups. The second is strategic: the hidden injuries of class7 now have become visible in politics so polarized that our democracy is threatened. A few words — Joan C. Williams

Katniss: I'm coming back into focus when Caesar asks him if he has a girlfriend back home.
Peeta: (Gives an unconvincing shake of head.)
Caesar: Handsome lad like you. There must be some special girl. Come on, what's her name?
Peeta: Well, there is this one girl. I've had a crush on her ever since I can remember. But I'm pretty sure she didn't know I was alive until the reaping.
Caesar: She have another fellow?
Peeta: I don't know, but a lot of boys like her.
Caesar: So, here's what you do. You win, you go home. She can't turn you down, eh?
Peeta: I don't think it's going to work out. Winning ... won't help in my case.
Caesar: Why ever not?
Peeta: Because ... because ... she came here with me.
Caesar: Oh, that is a piece of bad luck.
Peeta: It's not good.
Caesar: Well, I don't think any of us can blame you. It'd be hard not to fall for that young lady. She didn't know?
Peeta: Not until now. — Suzanne Collins

I think sometimes, when you're on top and all you do is win, win, win, win, win, you get lazy and lose focus. When you lose it opens your eyes and you get serious. There is always a time when it is good to lose, at the right time for you. — Usain Bolt

If I had a daughter, I would tell her certain things. I would tell her that it's great to be smart, really smart - that being smart makes you strong. I would tell her that emotions are powerful, so don't be afraid to show them. I would tell her that some people may judge you on how you look or what you wear - that's just how it is - but you should keep your focus on what you say and do. I would tell her that she may see the world differently from boys, and that difference is essential and good. — Kirsten Gillibrand

What good is it to continue to focus on the exterior technological wonders before us
from indefinite life extension to computer/mind interlinks to unlimited zero-point energy to worm-hole intergalactic space travel
if all we carry with us is an egocentric red-mem Nazis and KKK? Do we really want Jack the Ripper living 400 years, zipping around the country in his hypercar, unleashing misogynistic nanorobots? Exterior developments are clearly a concern; how much more so are interior developments
or lack there of ... — Ken Wilber

Juggling is about throwing, not catching That's why it's so difficult to learn how to juggle. We're conditioned to make the catch, to hurdle whatever is in our way to save the day, to - no matter what - not drop the ball. If you spend your time and energy and focus on catching, it's inevitable that your throws will suffer. You'll get plenty of positive feedback for the catches you make, but you'll always be behind, because the throws you manage to make will be ever less useful. Paradoxically, if you get better at throwing, the catches take care of themselves. The only way to get better at throwing, though, is to throw. Throw poorly, throw again. Throw well, throw again. Get good at throwing first. — Seth Godin

It is notable that many of the Semi-Arians were men of exceptional moral rigor but apparently little gentleness,13 and although Gregory also exhorted his listeners to focus on doing good works, he reminded them, God specially rejoices in revealing Himself to the world as Love. — Justin S. Holcomb

Our schools teach the opposite: institutionalized education traffics in a kind of homogenized, generic knowledge. Everybody who passes through the American school system learns not to think in power law terms. Every high school course period lasts 45 minutes whatever the subject. Every student proceeds at a similar pace. At college, model students obsessively hedge their futures by assembling a suite of exotic and minor skills. Every university believes in "excellence," and hundred-page course catalogs arranged alphabetically according to arbitrary departments of knowledge seem designed to reassure you that "it doesn't matter what you do, as long as you do it well." That is completely false. It does matter what you do. You should focus relentlessly on something you're good at doing, but before that you must think hard about whether it will be valuable in the future. — Peter Thiel

The side effect of expanding consciousness is that negativity starts to evaporate; it goes away like darkness when you turn on a light. Many students have so much torment, stress, depression, sorrow and hate in them these days, but then they get this technique and the negativity starts to go away. They start to feel good because the torment is leaving. Their health gets better and they get happier, their comprehension and their ability to focus grow, their grades go up and a joy for life grows; all of which comes from within. — David Lynch

I think people read the tabloids because they want to see you eating a burger, or out of your makeup or doing something stupid because they just want to see that you're like everyone else. And that's OK. I don't want to catch myself anymore saying that my life is hard, because the good far outweighs the bad in my life. And it's easier to focus on those things, on the things that are important. — Leonardo DiCaprio

Rock bottom is an inability to cope with the commonplace that is so extreme it makes even the grandest and loveliest things unbearable ... Rock bottom is everything out of focus. It's a failure of vision, a failure to see the world as it is, to see the good in what it is, and only to wonder why the hell things look the way they do and not some other way. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

It is good to focus, but never forget to look around. If you focus on the wrong target, you may miss seeing all of the beauty around you. — Debasish Mridha

God rewards the soul that focuses on Him with attention and love, and God rewards that soul by exercising a rigorous compulsion on it, mathematically proportional to this attention and love. We must abandon ourselves to this pressure, and run to the precise point where it leads, and not a single step further, not even in the direction of what is good. At the same time, we must continue to focus on God, with ever more love and attention, and in this way obtain an even greater compulsion - to become an object of a compulsion that possesses for itself a perpetually growing portion of the soul. Once God's compulsion possesses the whole soul, one has reached the state of perfection. But no matter what degree we reach, we must not accomplish anything beyond what we are irresistibly pressured (compelled) to do, not even in the way of good. — Simone Weil

Responding to bereavement by trying to make a difference is certainly both understandable and admirable, but it doesn't give you good reason to raise money for one specific cause of death rather than any other. If that person had died in different circumstances it would have been no less tragic. What we care about when we lose someone close to us is that they suffered or died, not that they died from a specific cause. By all means, the sadness we feel at the loss of a loved one should be harnessed in order to make the world a better place. But we should focus that motivation on preventing death and improving lives per se, rather than preventing death and improving lives in one very specific way. Any other decision would be unfair on those we could have helped more. — William MacAskill

When it's time to focus in and play ball during the season, 100% of my focus is on that. When it's the offseason and I've got time to be away and I can do other interests - they don't conflict. I'm good at compartmentalizing. I can put everything in its appropriate box at the time and open it up when I need to at a later time. — Larry Fitzgerald

There is a lot of focus on TV, in magazines ... about being skinny and rich. I don't think those are that important. It's much more important for us to be good, honest people that try to help others and live the best life we can. That's where you get your satisfaction ultimately. — Laura Evans

You can't think and play. If you think about what you're playing the playing becomes stilted. You have to just focus on the music I feel, concenctrate on the music, focus on what you're playing and let the playing come out. Once you start thinking about doing this or doing that, it's not good. What you are doing is like a language. You have a whole collection of musical ideas and thoughts that you've accumulated through your musical history plus all the musical history of the whole world and it's all in your subconscious and you draw upon it when you play — Joe Pass

That was a frustrating race for me. I pushed as hard as possible at the start on the medium tyres whilst everyone around me was on the grippier soft compound rubber. Once I moved to the soft tyres I was able to set the race's then fastest lap so things looked good with our strategy. Unfortunately the engine anti-kill triggered when I came in to make my final pit stop which cost me a lot of time. It's frustrating as we should have finished strongly. My focus is now Barcelona where I've delivered very strongly in the past. — Pastor Maldonado

It does no good to believe in what does not exist to the point one cannot focus on what is real. That would be the greatest tragedy of any 'conspiracy.' — John Ridley

We need to give children ways to help themselves feel good," she tells me. "Parents can start with simple messages throughout the morning that children can repeat - messages such as: It's so easy to get dressed. I love getting dressed. Breakfast is always a fun time. We're all so glad to see each other. We love eating breakfast together. Breakfast makes my body feel good. "Parents can even go around the table and have each family member share one thing they love about themselves. Or they can put affirmations in a bowl and choose one for the whole family to focus on during the day. This can become a morning ritual for couples, families, roommates, and so on. Each person can even decide on one experience they'd like to have that day and create an affirmation for — Louise L. Hay

If we want to live perfectly happy lives...we must drive out selfish character tendencies such as pride, ego, vanity, jealousy, lusts, envy and worry. When we learn to live selflessly, putting others before ourselves, committing to what is noble, right and good; treating others with love and compassion...that's when true happiness is experienced. A genuine focus on selflessness cures all and creates an environment for true growth. It's the secret to every great relationship. We gain...when we give up self. Sacrificing one's selfish characteristics through diligent thought, meditation, prayer and action gives life to true love and abounding joy.~Jason Versey — Jason Versey

The consensus seems to be this: we should be deeply Christian artists. But that doesn't mean we should be something called Christian artists or that whatever we produce should be called Christian art. We should simply focus on our craft, on making the best art we can. We should understand that people will and should resonate with our work not because it is Christian but because it is good. Above all, Christians should make good art, true art; art unafraid of exploring mystery, portraying evil, and looking for truth wherever it appears. — Brett McCracken

With the initial focus groups and the initial look-sees, the Rams are a very popular team in Southern California. And so one of the reasons that it was attractive to us to work against them is because they have that good flavor. — Jerry Jones

Many of us are slaves to our minds. Our own mind is our worst enemy. We try to focus, and our mind wanders off. We try to keep stress at bay, but anxiety keeps us awake at night. We try to be good to the people we love, but then we forget them and put ourselves first. And when we want to change our life, we dive into spiritual practice and expect quick results, only to lose focus after the honeymoon has worn off. We return to our state of bewilderment. We're left feeling helpless and discouraged. It seems we all agree that training the body through exercise, diet, and relaxation is a good idea, but why don't we think about training our minds? — Sakyong Mipham

Watch the actors who are on a very high frequency, very alert to everything and very much in touch with their feelings -- simple. Acting should be economical and simple. It's not complicated. So many actors make it complicated, fill it with screaming, yelling, crying, a lot of emotion but no real inner action, no real focus. Actors who have good technique are pursuing a very simple objective. They know what they're listening for, they know what they're looking for. They know what the obstacles are that stand in the way and what they're doing to get what they want. They allow themselves to respond right off their partner, spontaneously.

Acting is not difficult. It's simply a matter of defining the action. — Michael Beckett

It's puzzling to me that so many self-help gurus urge people to visualize victory, and stop there. Some even insist that if you wish for good things long enough and hard enough, you'll get them - and, conversely, that if you focus on the negative, you actually invite bad things to happen. Why make yourself miserable worrying? Why waste time getting ready for disasters that may never happen? Anticipating problems and figuring out how to solve them is actually the opposite of worrying: it's productive. Likewise, coming up with a plan of action isn't a waste of time if it gives you peace of mind. While it's true that you may wind up getting ready for something that never happens, if the stages are at all high, it's worth it. — Chris Hadfield

Value all relationships for the lessons they teach. Make sure you learn the lessons well. If not you will repeat those mistakes over and over.
Focus on the kind of relationship you do want! Surround yourself with people who manifest those characteristics. Avoid and eliminate negativity at all cost.
Become a producer of that which is positive.
Look for the good in every situation and praise it. talk about it & be about it. Be about only good things.Create and manifest around you joy and peace and happiness. Let the presence of God be your model. Gods' kingdom consists of 3 things, righteousness, peace and joy in Gods words. When you become a positive producer, you will begin to attract what you produced
positives! — Stella Payton

The instant before something comes into focus is more exciting than any sharp certainty. Photography, child, is about the passing of time. Capturing is the goal of literature. Timelessness is the task of music and painting. But a good photograph holds time just as a vase holds water. The water will evaporate and the vase becomes a memorial to it. What separates a snapshot from a masterpiece is that the latter is a metaphor of patience ... — Miguel Syjuco

There comes a time in your life, when you walk away from all the drama and people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh. Forget the bad and focus on the good. Love the people who treat you right, pray for the ones who do not. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is a part of life, getting back up is living. — Jose N. Harris

I write a little plan for the day. I write down what time I need to get up to go to the race, just so I'm organised in my mind. That way all I have to focus on during the day is the race, not how I'm going to get there. When you're training it's good to know what you're doing every day. You need to have a plan. — Helen Jenkins

I like to understand, very specifically, what it is I'm seeing, and where it is and where it's going, and a lot of that is just hitting the mark and following the dotted line. But that's good, too because there's concentration and focus that's involved in that. — Stephen Lang

People aren't so good at being good to one another. We try hard enough, but something essential was left out in the making of us, some hard little patch of stone in the fertile soil that's supposed to be our hearts. We get hung up on the bad, and we focus on it until it grows, and the whole crop is lost. I — Seanan McGuire

For me, teaching helps to reaffirm the right principles and values of acting. It helps me focus on the good stuff that can be easy to lose sight of because the business is so result-oriented. — Mark Pellegrino

And I know, knew for sure, with an absolute certainty, that this is rock bottom, this what the worst possible thing feels like. It is not some grand, wretched emotional breakdown. It is, in fact, so very mundane: ... Rock Bottom is an inability to cope with the commonplace that is so extreme it makes even the grandest and loveliest things unbearable ... Rock bottom is feeling that the only thing that matters in all of life is the one bad moment ... Rock bottom is everything out of focus. It's a failure of vision, a failure to see the world how it is, to see the good in what it is, and only to wonder why the hell things look the way they do and not - and not some other way. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

The fact of the matter is: when you're doing a project, you try to make it better every moment. And a lot of people get frustrated. But I surrounded myself with a good team of people and I'm really proud of the work we've all done. All I can say is - I've learned this in my business - don't let the process frustrate you; focus on the end. Because the end is pretty wonderful. Just fight it out. — Jon Taffer

It's a good time to say "Oh" and take stock and say "Gee, how was I ethically this year?" That's the problem with faith. What it does is it kind of screws up your priorities. Your priorities shouldn't be saving your ass, which is the focus of Christianity. The focus should be, I'm a good person, and I do that just for the sake of being good. Like the Christmas song says, "Be good for goodness sake." — Bill Maher

When life is hard it's easy to focus only on the bad things and forget all about the good things God has given us. But God has blessed every one of us in ways we often overlook. — Billy Graham

Good memory skill is the offspring of good focus. If you find yourself becoming a little forgetful, it is probably not because there is something wrong with your brain. Rather, it is simply because your mind is too cluttered to allow things to stick. — Ilchi Lee

In that instant, I realized that if I focused on the pain and misery, it would take me longer to heal. When chronic pain is my most often companion, it can be challenging to keep looking for the good. I needed to figure out a way to focus on the positive moments of each day. I needed to see where I was improving and healing. — Sharon E. Rainey

When you have your chance to make a film, don't focus on pleasing everyone. I think the goal is to live in that sweet spot where you focus on making a good film and you have fun with your collaborators, but you don't waste your energy chasing approval every which way. When you have a vision and a good story and you've managed to raise funding, it is your approval as a director that everyone should be seeking. It's very simple. — Jennifer Phang

You can do better than that." He loops his arms around my waist and pulls me to him.
"Where are your gloves?"
"Better than that too." He drops a kiss on my collarbone. "Good to see you, Cass. I dreamed about you, Cass ... Feel free to improvise."
"Aren't you supposed to be wearing those work gloves? When you're working? Because otherwise your poor hands won't ... "
Gah. I sound like Mom, or the school nurse.
I'm no good at this.
Luckily, Cass is good enough for both of us. "I missed you, Gwen. It's good to see you, Gwen. I dreamed about you, Gwen. Yeah, haven't gotten around to the gloves. More important things to focus on. Want me to tell you what they are? — Huntley Fitzpatrick

A great love is a lot like a good memory. When it's there, and you know it's there, but its just out of your reach, it can be all that you think about. And you can focus on it, and try to force it. But the more that you do, the more you seem to push it away. But if you're patient, and hold still ... Maybe. Just maybe, it'll come to you. — Burnie Burns

If you fall out of love, remember the love and not the fall. If all you focus on is the fall, the fall will swallow you because it will grow. Focus is water and sunlight. It causes growth. Recalculate all the wrongs that have been done to you and examine the benefits that happened as a result of them. Be grateful for the bad things that happened and were in some way responsible for the good things that followed. Did you catch that be? Be. Thankful. Because this one can slip right past you so easily. — Augusten Burroughs

Everything you think about is a meditation, and you could say that the very form of your consciousness follows what you put your attention to. So Chi is really just focused attention, and it is attention, or awareness, that brings about results of whatever kind, rather than some nebulous energy or vril force. But energy is a good metaphor. — James Curcio

Love and appreciation are identical vibrations. Appreciation is the vibration of alignment with who-you-are. Appreciation is the absence of everything that feels bad and the presence of everything that feels good. When you focus upon what you want - ;when you tell the story of how you want your life to be - you will come closer and closer to the vicinity of appreciation, and when you reach it, it will pull you toward all things that you consider to be good in a very powerful way. — Esther Hicks

As you practice things, you get better. I mean I've worked very hard on changing my life and taking what is good about it and trying to jettison the things I think were not good about it. I think the key word is "discipline," focus. I'm always working at it, but I'm not always successful. — Lou Reed

The mind is a very intricate machine. It can store memories, past impressions, grudges, criticisms, judgments. It can hold a lot of stuff. In general, it's only really good at holding onto one thing at a time. Which is why, when we have a lot going on, we feel sort of stressed and we feel tension because the mind is busy trying to figure out what it should focus on first. — MC Yogi

If being premenstrual is "innocence," does that make those of us with periods guilty? And this really gets to the heart of the matter: These concerns aren't about lost innocence; they're about lost girlhood. The virginity movement doesn't want women to be adults.

Despite the movement's protestations about how this focus on innocence or preserving virginity is just a way of protecting girls, the truth is, it isn't a way to desexualize them. It simply positions their sexuality as "good" - worth talking about, protecting, and valuing - and women's sexuality, adult sexuality, as bad and wrong. The (perhaps) unintended consequences of this focus is that girl's sexuality is sexualized and fetishized even further. — Jessica Valenti

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

I hit my knees every morning and every night to give thanks for being alive and all the blessings I have. And in the middle of chaos, it's been suggested to me to stop and truly look around, notice the sky, the trees, the grass, and realize you're part of it all, which is hard when you really want to focus on what you think is bothering you. However, one of the smartest things I do is check in with my awesome wife, who is really good at screwing my head back on when needed. — Patrick Fabian

The truth is, I can choose to view tough times as growing times, I can choose to see aging as seasoning and I can choose to focus on whatever good there is to be found in living. I choose. After all, it's my point of view. — Steve Goodier

I hold no preconceived prejudice against anyone," he'd said, "because to do so is utter folly for someone in my line of work. It's only ignorance that causes individuals to label an entire race as either good or bad. These are generalities so broad as to be both worthless and dangerous. I deal only in specifics. God as they say, is in the details. I must focus on the unique traits of the individual in order to tailor an illusion that will ultimately enchant. To see others in this manner is to never give in to labeling. To fail to do this is the equivalent of putting on a blindfold. Do you understand? The devil is in the details. — Jeffrey Ford

It's all still about having a good story. You have to have a good story as your anchor, as your main focus. So for me, personally, I just like to concentrate on writing the best book I can, and if there's other stuff that goes along with it, that's awesome, as long as the story is central. — Rick Riordan

So it seems as though this part of us that is living a life on Earth is only a small piece or splinter of a much larger us. That we are many rather than one, or rather pieces of a more complex whole. We are only able to focus on the splinter we perceive as our totality. That is a good thing, because if we were aware of the complexity of it we would not be able to function in this world or reality. We are only able to see the facade that masks a much larger picture. Only now are we being allowed to peek behind the veil. — Dolores Cannon

In a way I do hate the process of writing. It's like learning a role where you never think you're going to be able to conquer it when you start and it just takes enough focus and narrowing and getting enthusiastic and not losing it and so on. It's never good enough, but you aim for something and you hope it comes somewhat close. But it is a pleasure once you have written it. — Julie Andrews

Tim Thomas is about excuses. It's always somebody else's fault. He said I was jealous? He should thank me for helping him get that contract. He said I didn't show? They traded me, they traded Ray, they traded Big Dog [Robinson] and Tim Thomas still wasn't the man on that team. Michael Redd became the man there. I think I'm doing quite well for myself here. Right now, he needs to focus on his game. Right now, he's not a good basketball player. And I like Tim Thomas. He just has too many damn excuses. — Sam Cassell

Freedom is the only style. That is why I never speak about beauty or beautiful products but 'good products'. Nowadays, we have so many challenges; it is not really a priority to care for beauty. The only way for us is to focus on an ethic and ecological behaviour. — Philippe Starck

Talent can be a nice thing to have sometimes. You look good, attract attention, and if you're lucky, you make some money. Women flock to you. In that sense, having talent's preferable to having none. But talent only functions when it's supported by a tough, unyielding physical and mental focus. All it takes is one screw in your brain to come loose and fall off, or some connection in your body to break down, and your concentration vanishes, like the dew at dawn.
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If talent's the foundation you rely on, and yet it's so unreliable that you have no idea what's going to happen to it the next minute, what meaning does it have? — Haruki Murakami

Social scientific research is and always will be tentative and imperfect. It does not claim to transform economics, sociology, and history into exact sciences. But by patiently searching for facts and patterns and calmly analyzing the economic, social, and political mechanisms that might explain them, it can inform democratic debate and focus attention on the right questions. It can help to redefine the terms of debate, unmask certain preconceived or fraudulent notions, and subject all positions to constant critical scrutiny. In my view, this is the role that intellectuals, including social scientists, should play, as citizens like any other but with the good fortune to have more time than others to devote themselves to study (and even to be paid for it - a signal privilege). — Thomas Piketty

The importance of cultivating assumption of the best intentions in others cannot be over-estimated. Fostering this principal of, "goodness of intent," and committing to seeing others and the world through this lens makes for a successful, happy field of vision. This enables us to put our focus and energy to positive, productive outcomes. It lends to a spirit of cooperation and encouragement which is highly effective and satisfying for most people most of the time. That being said, these "rose colored glasses," as vibrant and pleasing as they are, must not become an excuse to look the other way when something needs a different focus, or fixed. We must not let them become blinders which are obviously ineffective, often negative, and occasionally dangerous. — Connie Kerbs

Women with low self-esteem or those who are depressed, however, tend to focus exclusively on their shortcomings and are bitter about what they perceive as the advantages or good fortune of others. Taken to an extreme, such an individual tends to be self-involved, hostile, and cutting. It's natural to feel envy occasionally, but if this is a persistent pattern, it can signal a toxic friendship. — Irene S. Levine

The Saints are doing a good job adjusting. I think their focus is on trying to make the best of their season, but also to try and help the people of New Orleans in the process. From everything I've seen and heard they are doing a good job of it. — Archie Manning

Most writers cannot afford focus groups or A/B testing, but they can ask a roommate or colleague or family member to read what they wrote and comment on it. Your reviewers needn't even be a representative sample of your intended audience. Often it's enough that they are not you. This does not mean you should implement every last suggestion they offer. Each commentator has a curse of knowledge of his own, together with hobbyhorses, blind spots, and axes to grind, and the writer cannot pander to all of them. Many academic articles contain bewildering non sequiturs and digressions that the authors stuck in at the insistence of an anonymous reviewer who had the power to reject it from the journal if they didn't comply. Good prose is never written by a committee. A writer should revise in response to a comment when it comes from more than one reader or when it makes sense to the writer herself. — Steven Pinker

Evangelism cant be our focus! We must not stop sharing the good news, but here's the deal, here's the wonderful thing, it gets done along the way as you do discipleship. Great commission is just about going to disciple the nations and you know what happens ... as you disciple them evangelism takes place, because it's done in the context of discipleship.
Here's the issue: We have to reframe evangelism within the context of discipleship — Alan Hirsch

Sales managers need to be good leaders. How do they do it? Good leaders effectively communicate their goals and objectives while they focus on doing their job ProActively, and let their people focus on their job. If this is true, then the inverse must be true. — William Miller

It is really gratifying, for example, to visit India now and see that because they've had good educational institutions, and they've had a focus on it, there are more and more people in India participating in the world economy. — Bill Gates

If you are a good communicator, be unique: put yourself in your own commercials and do something a little different. To the extent you can focus on what it is you want to change, what it is you know how to change, and what it is you think will make life better for other people, you're going to do better. — Roger Ailes

People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things. — Steve Jobs

So in the midst of our struggle with indwelling sin, we must continually keep our focus on the gospel. We must always go back to the truth that even in the face of the fact that so often "I do not do the good that I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing" (Rom 7:19), there is no condemnation. God no longer counts our sins against us (Rom 4:8). Or, to say it another way, God wants us to find our primary joy in our objectively declared justification, not in our subjectively perceived sanctification. Regardless of how much progress we make in our pursuit of holiness, it will never come close to the absolute perfect righteousness of Christ that is ours through our union with him in his life and death. So we should learn to live with the discomfort of the justified life. We should accept the fact that as still-growing Christians we will always be dissatisfied with our sanctification. But at the same time, we should remember that in Christ we are justified. — Jerry Bridges

Good psychiatry and good trading have one important principle in common. Both focus on reality, on seeing the world the way it is. To live a healthy life, you have to live with your eyes open. To be a good trader, you need to trade with your eyes open, recognize real trends and turns, and not waste time or energy on fantasies, regrets, and wishful thinking. — Anonymous

It can't be more than a quarter of a mile to the finish, but it seems to go on forever. Do I really have to do this? My legs are entirely dead. Would it really matter if I stopped here?
But I know I'd regret it if I did, so I plod leadenly on, distracting myself...with the thought that, whatever troubles I may have been carrying around in my head before the race, I have now entirely forgotten what they were. This thought is rather refreshing. Whatever physical pains it has involved, this ordeal has utterly absorbed me, forcing my brain to focus on the kind of concerns for which it evolved - navigation, survival, balance, digging deep - rather than on the fretful urban anxieties to which it has become habituated. Reconnecting with your inner animal, I suppose you could call it; and it feels good. Especially when, blissfully, I catch sight of the finish. — Richard Askwith

I think I can say without fear of inaccuracy that description is my strong point. Possibly this fact is central to my feeling excluded and so on in what might be called "the scene." There appears to be a particular divide in literature that has "description" and all it implies, as its focus. Some people hate "fancy writing," and just want to "cut to the chase," and so on. This attitude deeply irritates me. If you can't try and take words to their limit in the field of literature, then where can you? I actually think that variety is good, but it's usually the enemies of "fancy writing" who also seem to deplore variety and believe that there's only one way to write - without adverbs etc. etc. — Quentin S. Crisp

Ethical religion affirms the continuity of progress toward moral perfection. It affirms that the spiritual development of the human race cannot be prematurely cut off, either gradually or suddenly; that every stone of offence against which we stumble is a stepping-stone to some greater good:;; that, at the end of days, if we choose to put it so, or, rather, in some sphere beyond the world of space and time, all the rays of progress will be summed and centred in a transcendent focus. — Felix Adler

Envision in your mind what you expect from life, focus on your plan ... whether good or bad you can anticipate its arrival. The choice is then yours to accept it. — Mark W. Boyer

Every day is a grand adventure into the great unknown and you cannot know what lies around the next corner. So, standing in this place, with the unknown before you, you have only two choices: you can live in trust (believing you are safe and that good things are coming) or you can live in fear (scared of the future and focused on you). Your choice will not change what's around that next corner, it will be what it's meant to be, but it will have a big impact on the way you feel today. Do you want to experience today in fear, focused on yourself? Or do you want to experience trust and focus on love? It's up to you. — Kimberly Giles

When you gather up all the balls of life that you try to juggle, it is a very difficult thing to try to focus in on taking good care of yourself. But that's why God invented me - so I can come and teach and preach and make people laugh and give them some education so they can start liking themselves better. — Richard Simmons

The decision to be positive is not one that disregards or belittles the sadness that exists. It is rather a conscious choice to focus on the good and to cultivate happiness
genuine happiness. Happiness is not a limited resource. And when we devote our energy and time to trivial matters, and choose to stress over things that ultimately are insignificant. From that point, we perpetuate our own sadness, and we lose sight of the things that really make us happy and rationalize our way out of doing amazing things. — Christopher Aiff

I understand that if you focus on what is wrong in your life, that is all you will see." Marian put her hands on Alditha's shoulders. "But if you open your eyes, you will see all the good gifts God has given you. If you continue to see only the bad, you will become bitter and angry. If you decide to see what is good, you will go back to being the smiling girl I grew up with and loved." Alditha swallowed hard. The words of the priest came to her. "This life, though hard, is a gift. Sometimes even I do not understand all of His ways, but I will tell you this; he loves you, and everything he does or does not do is for your good. You simply have to have faith to see it that way. — Sarah Holman

Hope looks good on paper. But what creates greatness is focus, dedication and hard work. Daily. Go do it. We deserve to see you fly in 2014. — Robin Sharma

The good news is that Christ frees us from the need to obnoxiously focus on our goodness, our commitment, and our correctness. Religious has made us obsessive almost beyond endurance. Jesus invited us to a dance ... and we've turned in into a march of soldiers, always checking to see if we're doing it right and are in step and in line with the other soldiers. We know a dance would be more fun, but we believe we must go through hell to get to heaven, so we keep marching. — Steve Brown

It is not good to have an oar in everyone's boat. — Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden

As I'll explain, mission is one of these desirable traits, and like any such desirable trait, it too requires that you first build career capital - a mission launched without this expertise is likely doomed to sputter and die. But capital alone is not enough to make a mission a reality. Plenty of people are good at what they do but haven't reoriented their career in a compelling direction. Accordingly, I will go on to explore a pair of advanced tactics that also play an important role in making the leap from a good idea for a mission to actually making that mission a reality. In the chapters ahead, you'll learn the value of systematically experimenting with different proto-missions to seek out a direction worth pursuing. You'll also learn the necessity of deploying a marketing mindset in the search for your focus. In other words, missions are a powerful trait to introduce into your working life, but they're also fickle, requiring careful coaxing to make them a reality. This — Cal Newport

As of right this second my main focus is my new album, it'll be out probably towards the summertime, predominately R&B this time. I had a little stint with the dance music and all of that, which I had a good time with- and I love the audience, I love them for accepting me doing it -but I had to go home on this one. Had to take it back to my roots, and not to say that there won't be one, maybe two songs on there that the dance crowd can get into, but the majority, the girth of the album, will be R&B. — Ne-Yo

Barbecue is the good old technique of people making a fire and putting some stuff over the top - I mean, look at the S'more: it's just got a stick. A lot of those goofy toys, it's people who are looking at things to do. I think if you focus on the food, at the most you need tongs or a spoon to flip something; that's about it. — Graham Elliot

Meditation does not have to be long or complicated for you to receive its benefits. If you haven't done it before, I suggest you begin by meditating for five minutes a day. A good time to engage in this practice is in the morning just after you've awakened, but you can do it at any time that works for you. Find a comfortable position where you are sitting with your spine straight. Close your eyes and concentrate on your breath. Just follow your breath in and out for five minutes. If you find that you have started to think of something other than your breath during those five minutes, gently pull yourself back to concentrating on your breath. What you are seeking is five minutes of relaxed, easy focus on your breath. In, out, in, out, in, out. Summarizing how important this centeredness practice is, the Zen master Pao-chih simply said, "If the mind is never aroused toward objects, then wherever you walk is the site of enlightenment. — Anonymous

The grand design of nature perceived broadly in four dimensions, including the forces that move the universe and created man, with special focus on evolution in our own biosphere, is something intrinsically good that it is right to preserve and enhance, and wrong to destroy and degrade. — Roger Wolcott Sperry

To all those whom seek the iron words of the community: if your book is good, it will stand on its own. Be it a short story, a novel, a novella, a chapter book, a poetry book, a chapbook, a manga or a graphic novel ... it will seek reviews by itself. You need to do nothing with it. Do nothing but write. Give up review seeking and focus on writing, for that is what becomes you in the end. — L'Poni Baldwin

It's good to focus on the universal suffering that goes on in any war. Whatever the right and wrongs of the war, there is always universal suffering. — Michael Morpurgo