Susan Sontag Quotes

Don't let your life just go in one eye and out the other.

Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.

Slow down, totally. You have to slow down and pay attention to everything.

In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation. Pay attention to everything in the world as if it's alive. Realize everything has its own discrete existence outside your story. By doing this, you open to gifts and lessons that the world has to give you.

Presence is more than just being there.

Presence is in the eye and ear and gut of the beholder. When you are totally present in a conversation or in a meeting, others around you perceive you as totally focused on the matter at hand and on being of value to them.

Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead.

I think inspiration is always around; it's just a question of whether or not you're noticing it.

To hear something asks very little of us. To listen places our entire being on notice.

Pay attention. Don't just stagger through the day.

If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything. When a child presents himself to you with his smile, if you are not really there - thinking about the future or the past, or preoccupied with other problems - then the child is not really there for you. The technique of being alive is to go back to yourself in order for the child to appear like a marvellous reality. Then you can see him smile and you can embrace him in your arms.

Whatever you do, do with deep alertness, then even small things become sacred.

The best way to capture moments is to pay attention. This is how we cultivate mindfulness. Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you are doing.

If you have your full attention in the moment, you will see only love.

Be aware, and wine becomes water. Be aware - sex becomes love. Be aware - love becomes prayer. Be aware - prayer becomes meditation. Simply one thing has to be remembered: do whatsoever you like, but do it with full consciousness, and then you will not go astray.

The experience taught me to be present in the real Buddhist sense of paying attention to the moment.

Well... ...That's what you always forget, isn't it? I mean, you forget to pay attention to what's happening. And that's the same as not being here and now.

Awareness means that whatsoever is happening in the moment is happening with complete consciousness; you are present there. If you are present when anger is happening, anger cannot happen. It can happen only when you are fast asleep. When you are present, immediate, transformation starts in your being, because when you are present, aware, many things are simply not possible. All that is called sin is not possible if you are aware. So, in fact, there is only one sin and that is unawareness.

Gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us.

I believe in being fully present. That means you should be with the person you’re with.

In any given moment we are either practicing mindfulness, or defacto, we are practicing mindlessness.

Look about you. Take hold of the things that are here. Let them talk to you. You learn to talk to them.

I just live my life and try to be present. When I'm present in the moment and something comes, I can capture it, because it doesn't come from me, it's out there.

Being thankful helps you to be present.People commit errors because they are not present.I would encourage women and men to be present - you'll avoid falling into certain pits.For instance, if you know that a person has just lost his wife or her husband or lover, it's unlikely that you will say something that will hurt that person's feelings if you're truly paying attention. You'll make a sweeter life for yourself and for those around you if you are present.