Sidetracked Quotes & Sayings

I've always loved being at the eye of the storm creatively with people that I find exciting and glamorous. So sometimes I got sidetracked in my career and maybe I would have done more TV or film. — Sandra Bernhard

The God is wild, but his is the wildness of connection, not of domination and violence. Wildness is not the same as violence. Gentleness and tenderness do no translate into wimpiness. When men -- or women, for that matter -- begin to unleash what is untamed in us, we need to remember that the first images and impulses we encounter will often be the stereotyped paths of power we have learned in a culture of domination. To become truly wild, we must not be sidetracked by the dramas of power-over, the seduction of addictions, or the thrill of control. We must go deeper. — Starhawk

I get sidetracked very easily. — Heather Donahue

I had trouble fitting in, in a musical sense. A lot of drummers get sidetracked by the instrument. It can engulf you. — Tre Cool

I started out as a folk singer, and kinda got sidetracked playin' honky tonks and such, but I was always a working musician. I didn't want to be Townes Van Zandt or Guy Clark, but I wanted to play in front of their audiences, you know what I mean? — Ray Wylie Hubbard

The journey of life is both too short and too precious to be sidetracked by guilt trips. — Bill Crawford

I was trying to be a writer, and I was kind of getting sidetracked, so I started doing cartoons as a form of expression. — Bruce Eric Kaplan

Eric penned nearly a dozen new journal entries in the next two months.
"I have a goal to destroy as much as possible," he wrote, "so I must not be sidetracked by my feelings of sympathy, mercy, or any of that."
It was a mark of Eric's ruthlessness that he comprehended the pain and consciously fought the urge to spare it. "I will force myself to believe that everyone is just another monster from Doom," [the computer game he played day and night] he wrote. "I have to turn off my feelings. — Dave Cullen

It's easy to get sidetracked with thoughts that involve much money and precious things, but before you launch into that mode, reason well. — Auliq Ice

I never wanted to be a filmmaker. I still, sometimes, think I got sidetracked by this, like this is a tangent. My main thing was painting; I was just going to do that. — Taika Waititi

Hugh's old drawing teacher used to have one, and though it had been ten years since he'd taken the woman's class, I could suddenly recall him talking about it. "If I had a skeleton like Minerva's ... ," he used to say. I don't remember the rest of the sentence, as I'd always been sidetracked by the teacher's name, Minerva. Sounds like a witch. — David Sedaris

When I first started acting, I started in opera and had a great desire to play grand, tragic characters. I got sidetracked in musical theater and ended up doing a lot of comedy. — Leslie Easterbrook

Even before I started writing songs, that was one of my goals to be a writer, and I still have that goal. I've just gotten sidetracked. — Jason Reeves

The hope has vanished that the problem of justly distributing goods can be sidetracked by creating an abundance of them. The cost of the minimum packages capable of satisfying modern tastes has skyrocketed, and what makes tastes modern is their obsolescense prior even to satisfaction. — Ivan Illich

Do not be sidetracked. A good referee will have many ways to distract an expedition, many things to draw attention, but ignore them if at all possible. — Gary Gygax

This morning's lecture was on how to avoid ninjas, which might have been interesting if step one hadn't been "Stay out of Japan." Furthermore, Crandall had quickly become sidetracked, — Stuart Gibbs

My stomach rumbled. Like certain other portions of my anatomy, it had a tendency to become easily sidetracked, and to hell with little details like survival. — Jim Butcher

Where are they going to get a camera? I asked. I don't know, said Noehmi. They'll probably get sidetracked along the way. Or they'll come back with paint instead, or beer, or some new idea for a circus or something. They're social anarchists. — Miriam Toews

Governments have tried to stop crime through punishment throughout the ages, but crime continued in the past punishment remains. Crime can only be stopped through a preventive approach in the schools. You teach the students Transcendental Meditation, and right away they'll begin using their full brain physiology sensible and they will not get sidetracked into wrong things. — Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

The best gift we can have is living in the present moment and really enjoying it for what it is; and, not being in our heads and getting sidetracked. — Amy Smart

To me, all writing is like music. And especially dialogue. I studied music in college; that is what I wanted to be, a composer. Acting got me sidetracked. — Dirk Benedict

Your main target should be to find and develop your own unique individuality and not let your focus be sidetracked and drift to external things — Sunday Adelaja

When I started, I decided to devote my life to it and not get sidetracked by all the other bullshit life has to offer — Cliff Burton

I was momentarily sidetracked by the vision of Eric herding a cow into a trailer and driving it to the shoulder of the the interstate and shooing it into the trees. — Charlaine Harris

Should I say it again?" He looked confused for a beat, but then it turned to wariness. "I've never said that to anyone before. Am I supposed to give a longer speech or something?" A laugh flew out. Oh God. This man was priceless. Sofia finally found her voice. "You love me?" "Yeah, I do. I probably should have led with that, but the state of your fucking house really pisses me off and I got sidetracked. — Elle Kennedy

I usually get up between 7 A.M. and 8 A.M., have coffee, and go right to work. It's really important not to get sidetracked in the morning so I'm still in that dreamy state for my writing. — Rachel Kushner

Our work is to preach the gospel and we must not be sidetracked. — Oswald J. Smith

I saw that "success," "failure," "poverty", "riches," were price tags, money values of the market place which had mesmerized and sidetracked me for years. — Anzia Yezierska

We have churches filled with people who can win Bible trivia contests but who don't know Him. I am afraid that some of us have been sidetracked or entangled by everything from prosperity to poverty, and we've become such an ingrown society of the self-righteous that our desires and our wants and those — Tommy Tenney

I worked in Trenton, and then I got sidetracked into comedy and then onto 'SNL.' And then into being a live performer - what I do now; virtually that's what I am: I'm a live entertainer. — Joe Piscopo

I've got a lot of wonderfully talented, creative directors I've worked with in Texas, but the market we're in, they kind of have to write to that. I think we've done some cool, simple spots. I was very comfortable in Texas, and getting ready to push out into national stuff, try to get to that national-type creative, and then I got sidetracked with this stuff. — Jackie Earle Haley

He didn't maintain my illusion of myself, he gave me an illusion of myself. Before I met him, I never thought of myself as an actress. Boy, he sidetracked me in a great way! — Judy Holliday

Who's more interesting: A famous scientist, or the famous who plays the cello and whittles marionettes in a lighthouse at the edge of the world where he sometimes writes poetry by the light of passing ships? Exactly. Follow your weird impulses and do all sorts of things. Getting sidetracked can lead you to exactly where you belong. — Jessica Hagy

The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using all the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first one. — Frederick P. Brooks Jr.

I encourage everyone to become their dream. Most young people get sidetracked and never end up doing what they really set out to do. — James De La Vega

I mean we're all guilty of getting sidetracked or getting taken away from our loved ones. Whether we believe it or not, or care to admit it or not, it's just a product of this lifestyle. That's a big reason why I've always called this the blessing and the curse. — Chuck Ragan

Work out what is truly important to you. Research shows people with consistently high happiness scores prioritise their life according to the things they value. They've worked out what is most important to them and don't allow themselves to get sidetracked. — Robert Holden

[T]he most elaborate code of [law]... would still have left unspecified a hundred ways in which wreckers of Communism could have sidetracked it without ever having to face the essential questions: are you pulling your weight in the social boat? are you giving more trouble than you are worth? have you earned the privilege of living in a civilized community? That is why the Russians were forced to set up an Inquisition or Star Chamber, called at first the Cheka and now the Gay Pay Oo (Ogpu), to go into these questions and "liquidate" persons who could not answer them satisfactorily. — George Bernard Shaw

If I have even just a little sense, I will walk on the main road and my only fear will be of straying from it. Keeping to the main road is easy, But people love to be sidetracked. — Laozi

The major problem of life is learning how to handle the costly interruptions. The door that slams shut, the plan that got sidetracked, the marriage that failed. Or that lovely poem that didn't get written because someone knocked on the door. — Martin Luther King Jr.

If I ever wrote a book on preaching, it would contain three words: Preach the Word. Get rid of all the other stuff that gets you sidetracked; preach the Word. — Charles R. Swindoll

As a leader you can get sidetracked but you have to complete your mission — Mike Krzyzewski

Miss Brinklow, however, was not yet to be sidetracked. "What do the lamas do?" she continued.
"They devote themselves, madam, to contemplation and to the pursuit of wisdom."
"But that isn't doing anything."
"Then, madam, they do nothing. — James Hilton

It's easy to get sidetracked with technology, and that is the danger, but ultimately you have to see what works with the music and what doesn't. In a lot of cases, less is more. In most cases, less is more. — Herbie Hancock

Recovery is a resumption of the work that was not completed when the woman was a girl. It is a coming into her own. It is an opportunity to resume the normal process of development that was sidetracked, perhaps first by constrained roles, perhaps by trauma, and then multiplied many times by hiding in the addiction. Her development was sidetracked by not accepting her needs as legitimate and not finding healthy ways to meet them, by not even knowing her needs. And so this is what recovery is: a developmental process of finding and building a new self. Recovery is a process of radical growth and change. When you are in recovery, you give birth to a new self. [...] Many women initially think that recovery means a move from bad to good. They think that being addicted is evidence of shameful neediness, of deep and lasting failures. Recovery is not a move from bad to good, but from false to real. [...] It is reality, being real, that now guides her rather than her efforts to be good or bad. — Stephanie Brown

I am a confused Musician who got sidetracked into this goddamn Word business for so long that I never got back to music - except maybe when I find myself oddly alone in a quiet room with only a typewriter to strum on and a yen to write a song. Who knows why? Maybe I just feel like singing - so I type.
These quick electric keys are my Instrument, my harp, my RCA glass-tube microphone, and my fine soprano saxophone all at once. That is my music, for good or ill, and on some nights it will make me feel like a god. Veni, Vidi, Vici ... That is when the fun starts ... — Hunter S. Thompson

My father told me never to take my foot off a ladder to kick at someone who was kicking at me. When I did that, I would no longer be climbing. While they are kicking, my father told me, I should keep stepping. They can kick only one time. If I continued to climb, they would be left behind. In trying to hurt me, to impede my progress, they would get left behind because they allowed themselves to get sidetracked from their agenda. — Steve Harvey

Throughout my career, my mind rarely wandered, and I was never sidetracked by distractions, no matter what I was going through off the court. — Pete Sampras

If you can remain true to the people who know you the best and not be sidetracked by the flashing lights and glimmering of the cameras, it's like, just being down-to-earth and just kind of staying real. — Summer Altice

What I am proposing here is an experiment in practical Spinozism. Try it for yourself and see if it works. No matter what happens, say to yourself, "This could not be otherwise," and see what happens to your mood. See if you are less or more affected by causes opposed to your nature. See if your thoughts become more your own or are continually sidetracked by external thoughts that intrude on you. In short, see if this makes you more or less free. — Brent Adkins

The shutdown may have temporarily sidetracked the Republicans, yet Obamacare threatens much worse for the Democrats. By 2014 the former will be ancient history, while the latter will be an ongoing mess. — Victor Davis Hanson

I had a real good thing going for me, and I got sidetracked. It doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't have to be drugs. It doesn't have to be alcohol. That part of my life is over. — Ken Caminiti

Yes, my particular virtue of being very often objective, and thus sidetracked from thinking about myself, suffers lapses of affirmation, as do all virtues and even all vices. — Fernando Pessoa

I revisit my book piles. Trying not to be sidetracked or lured into another dimension. — Patti Smith

The stunted pines elude capture
in a thousand sidetracked increments.
The wind will never understand them.
Like us it is forced to go on. — Richard Meier

If you are paralyzed by your past, if Satan is destroying your gifts and your calling by his incessant replaying of old tapes, you're actually being hit by a double whammy. The original damage in the past is one thing - but now you're letting yourself be hurt and sidetracked again by the memory of what happened ... We should not be ignorant of Satan's devices, and these ugly memories are one of the main weapons in his arsenal. — Jim Cymbala

You have everything you need within you to become the best possible version of yourself. Believe that you CAN. Believe that you're capable of pushing harder and farther than you have before. Believe that you're young enough, old enough, smart enough and strong enough to achieve your goals. Don't let false beliefs stop you from moving beyond yourself. And certainly don't get sidetracked by other people who are off track. — John Geiger

If you have a clear goal and a plan to achieve it, your focus is fixed on a set course of action. Instead of becoming sidetracked by distractions and diversions, your time is focused on a straight line from start to finish. — Brian Tracy

Don't get sidetracked. If you do get sidetracked, get back on track as soon as possible. Ultimately sidetracking kills you. — Donald J. Trump

How could you let yourself be sidetracked while I was waiting for your breath on my back? — Anna Gavalda

I was actually going to be a chef before I got sidetracked. I used to make deserts for restaurants as a young teenage mother to make money. — Suzanne Somers