Over Focusing Quotes & Sayings

The reverend began droning the oft-repeated rites and vows of the marriage ceremony. He dared not look either participant in the eye, but directed the promises of love, honor, and obedience to the lofty bookshelves. Only once did he make the mistake of focusing on anything more animated, and then only because the cut over the groom's eye had begun to leak again and a bright red spot of blood dripped onto the front of his shirt, staining the stark whiteness of the silk like an omen of tragedy to come. — Marsha Canham

I breathed in the heat that spiraled around him. He gave me every ounce of attention he had to offer, focused like a leopard focusing on his prey, just long enough to cause a warmth to crack open and spill into my chest. Over my stomach. Between my legs. — Darynda Jones

Using a fisherman's net with large holes will only catch big fish; letting the smaller ones escape unharmed. It is a lot like life: focusing only on one golden opportunity lets the smaller ones slip away unnoticed. However, starting small will catch larger opportunities over time. — Adam Santo

We have no control over outcomes, but we can control the process. Of course, outcomes matter, but by focusing our attention on process, we maximize our chances of good outcomes. — Michael Mauboussin

It was hard to find somebody who could juggle both. And so we were really just focusing more on that. We figured, okay, if we're lucky enough to find somebody then, you know, the audience will get over it in one episode. — Debra Messing

A lot of people are focused on taking over the world or doing the biggest thing and getting the most users. I think part of making a difference and doing something cool is focusing intensely. — Mark Zuckerberg

Rather then focusing on the obstacle in your path, focus on the bridge over the obstacle. — Mary Lou Retton

Fortunately for India, it has got a growing economy. If it is doing the right things with taxation and focusing on the right areas for human development, it is going to have no problem, over a period of time, taking care of its own needs. — Bill Gates

I had an opportunity to play baseball in college, but I just didn't want to go to school. I started focusing on my music and it was game over! — Jason Aldean

Usually all I care about is how elegant or over-the-top the pieces are, it's nice to really get to understand what the customer wants and needs as opposed to just focusing on the aesthetic. — Christian Cota

When I'm not creating or focusing on something I can imagine or invent, I think I go back over my life - I don't recommend this by the way - and you pick up, oh, what'd you do that for? Why didn't you understand this? — Toni Morrison

In focusing on tooth film, Hopkins was ignoring the fact that this same film has always covered people's teeth and hadn't seemed to bother anyone. The film is a naturally occurring membrane that builds up on teeth regardless of what you eat or how often you brush.2.7 People had never paid much attention to it, and there was little reason why they should: You can get rid of the film by eating an apple, running your finger over your teeth, brushing, or vigorously swirling liquid around your mouth. Toothpaste didn't do anything to help remove the film. In fact, one of the leading dental researchers of the time said that all toothpastes - particularly Pepsodent - were worthless.2.8 That didn't stop Hopkins from exploiting his discovery. Here, he decided, was a cue that could trigger a habit. Soon, cities were plastered with Pepsodent ads. "Just run your tongue across your teeth," read one. "You'll feel a film - that's what makes your teeth look 'off color' and invites decay. — Charles Duhigg

Over the last several days, I'd done a fair amount of practiced focusing on my present state of "lesness" - homelessness, joblessness and relationshiplessness. Less was not more. Less was an unstable, uncomfortable place to be. — Penny Reid

Careful writers pick up the nuances of words by focusing on their makeup and their contexts over the course of tens of thousands of hours of reading. — Steven Pinker

For example, if you have the urge to eat ice cream, use the "I don't" strategy from Principle 1 and say to yourself, "I don't eat ice cream." Then, immediately begin focusing on a replacement because what you focus on gets stronger. In this case, you might begin focusing on eating a bowl of sliced fruits instead. Every time you get the urge for ice cream, replace it by eating a bowl of fruits instead. Over time, your negative habit will — Akash Karia

John Rebus ~ he tried to walk through the isles (of the book shop) without focusing. If he focused he would become interested and if he became interested he would buy. He already had over fifty unread books at home, piled next to his bed — Ian Rankin

I've been focusing on my career. I've had no time. That's why I wanted to go out this weekend. I've been storing that shit up like a sexual camel. At this point I'd probably just walk into the bar, blow my load all over the room like a fire hose, and walk out. — Darien Cox

If you were determined to get enjoyment out of every moment, you would learn to do whatever it took. What it takes is not listening to negative thoughts, yours or anyone else's. Disregarding negative thoughts isn't hiding our head in the sand, but simply not allowing the negative to clutter and influence over our experience of the present moment. The moment is never improved or helped by negativity, although we are programmed to think our negative thoughts, worries, and fears serve a useful function. When you really examine this idea, however, you see that negativity doesn't serve. Focusing on negativity and fears doesn't make anyone a better person, nor does doing that help us function better in the world. In fact, the truth is quite the opposite. — Gina Lake

One by one, I'll face the tasks before me and complete them as best I can. Focusing on each stride forward, but at the same time taking a long-range view, scanning the scenery as far ahead as I can. I am, after all, a long distance runner.
My time, the rank I attain, my outward appearance - all of these are secondary. For a runner like me, what's really important is reaching the goal I set myself, under my own power. I give it everything I have, endure what needs enduring, and am able, in my own way, to be satisfied. From out of the failures and joys I always try to come away having grasped a concrete lesson. (It's got to be concrete, no matter how small it is.) And I hope that, over time, as one race follows another, in the end I'll reach a place I'm content with. Or maybe just catch a glimpse of it. — Haruki Murakami

What we perceive as dejection over the futility of life is sometimes greed, which the monastic tradition perceives as rooted in a fear of being vulnerable in a future old age, so that one hoards possessions in the present. But most often our depression is unexpressed anger, and it manifests itself as the sloth of disobedience, a refusal to keep up the daily practices that would keep us in good relationship to God and to each other. For when people allow anger to build up inside, they begin to perform daily tasks resentfully, focusing on the others as the source of their troubles. Instead of looking inward to find the true reason for their sadness - with me , it is usually a fear of losing an illusory control - they direct it outward, barreling through the world, impatient and even brutal with those they encounter, especially those who are closest to them. — Kathleen Norris

Just get to lunch," I muttered to myself.
It was the only way I could control my anxiety. In 1998, I'd made it through Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL, or BUD/S, by focusing on just making it to the next meal. It didn't matter if I couldn't feel my arms as we hoisted logs over our heads or if the cold surf soaked me to the core. It wasn't going to last forever. There is a saying: "How do you eat an elephant?" The answer is simple: "One bite at a time." Only my bites were separated by meals: Make it to breakfast, train hard until lunch, and focus until dinner. Repeat. — Mark Owen

When we start focusing our energy on the things we love, they come easier and more effortlessly over time. — Michael Thomas Sunnarborg

I think the Tea Party movement is great. I think anybody who has been frustrated over the last few years with the Republicans and Democrats, when they were trying to grow government and have spending and we weren't focusing on creating jobs and get our private sector growing again, I think that's when people started to wake up. — Ben Quayle

This process of being mature in an anxious organisation has been likened to learning to sail against the wind; and as any sailor will tell you, this requires concentration and tolerating some tension as the wind pressures the vessel to let it take over the controls. Good skippers know how to tolerate sufficient tension to keep a steady course. They don't try to overpower their vessel with too much sail in order to get to the finish line faster, as they know this will inevitably knock them backwards. They also know not to panic and retreat to the safe harbour of familiarity. They focus on their key tasks of setting the course and letting the crew know their intensions so that each person can get on with focusing on their own tasks. There's only one path to growing this ability: through patient, thoughtful perseverance in the midst of experience ... no short cuts to be found. — Jenny Brown

Happiness is not the absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them. Raise your awareness to your own inner strength and positivity. You are in charge of how you react to the people and events in your life. You can either give negativity power over your life, or you can choose to be positive instead by focusing on the great things that are truly important. So talk about your blessings more than you talk about your problems. Just because you're struggling doesn't mean you're failing. Every great success requires some kind of worthy struggle to get there. — Anonymous

The heavy eyelids snapped open. Jack froze.
A huge gold-and-amber eye, as big as a dinner plater, stared at him. The dark pupil shrank, focusing.
Jack stood very still.
The colossal head turned, the scaled lip only three feet from Jack. The golden eyes gazed at him, wirling with fiery color.
Jack breathed in tiny, shallow breaths.
Dont blink. Don't blink ...
Two gusts of wind erutped from the wyvern's nostrils Jack jumped straight up, bounced off the ground into another jump, and scrambled up the nearest tree.
In the clearing, Gaston bent over, guffawing like an idiot.
'It's not funny! — Ilona Andrews

Most people agree, whether or not they think that carbohydrates are inherently fattening, that by focusing on fat, the nutritional establishment gave people license to over-consume carbohydrates and that this contributed to the obesity epidemic. The new threat is that by focusing now on fructose, the AHA and USDA and other organizations are giving implicit license to over-consume starch - almost guaranteed since these agencies are still down on fat and protein. — Richard David Feinman

Sure, there's a chunk of African-Americans out there who associate the Republican Party with racism, frankly particularly in the Deep South. It's an unfair perception, but it exists. Over a period time, that perception will die away if Republicans are focusing on issues that happen to impact African-Americans. — Artur Davis

Bitterness is not your friend. It's easy to become cynical, focusing your energies on them and endlessly wondering why they aren't more evolved and why they are still stuck back there, repeating the same slogans and going through the same motions. If you are filled with pride over how free and intelligent and enlightened you are in comparison to their backward, antiquated ways, your new knowledge has simply made you arrogant. Watch your heart carefully, because if you aren't more compassionate and more kind and more understanding, then you haven't grown at all. — Rob Bell

The relevance of these special properties of the hippocampus and their role in map learning comes from a consideration of the massive upsurge in our use of technology for wayfinding. By focusing on the blue dot of a phone map, rather than looking about at our surroundings and making the effort to form a genuine map, we are short-circuiting the processes that we've learned to use over previous millennia. As far as finding our way is concerned, we have become striatal stimulus-response machines, racing through time and space like feverish maze mice hunting for cheese. — Colin Ellard

Perhaps this is the solution to medicine's midlife crisis, too: doctors focusing on their noble craft, their relationships with patients, the stuff over which we have some control. Ultimately, this may be the best hope for our professional salvation. — Sandeep Jauhar

That both Muslim fundamentalists and the Christian right are today focusing their attempts to regain control in a rapidly changing world on frantic efforts to maintain control over women, particularly over women's sexuality. Moreover, given their mythologies about "holy wars," it is also understandable that they should use "divinely approved" violence to do so ... — Riane Eisler