Frank Shorter Quotes

But if you can find that spot - I suppose it's like running - I used to be a swimmer and swim laps, and you just have to be there with what you're doing.

When I write, I wear earplugs. I don't want to be self-conscious. I don't want to be thinking about the fact that I'm thinking about it. I just want to be in it. It's one element of hypnosis.

When I play, I become entirely absorbed in the game. It may be a form of concentration.

When you're in there getting buckets, you're not really paying attention to who's there. You're just doing your thing.

I was so locked in. At one point I remember thinking, I'm not going to be a father, boyfriend, friend, whatever. I'm here to play.

I've been so in the zone, you don't know where you are or where you're at.

When you're concentrating hard, hours can fly by, and it's just you and a math problem.

A lot of marathon runners access flow state. That's why it's so addictive: because they just get into this state where they're just completely one - they are in complete oneness. That's what happens to me when I play music and, I suppose, a lot of other people, too, which is why we do it.

In a game, I'm locked in. I maybe notice three rows in the stands the arena over, and that's it.

No matter how old I get, the race remains one of life's most rewarding experiences. My times become slower and slower, but the experience of the race is unchanged: each race a drama, each race a challenge, each race stretching me in one way or another, and each race telling me more about myself and others.

I've always thought that if my death was imminent, I would read. When I can't focus on a book, I tend to keep reading the same page. My guess is, I would've read, like the first page of Nicholas Nickleby over and over again.

If I'm really working on something, writing or painting or really concentrating, I don't even think about brushing my hair.

There's no magic to running far or climbing Everest. Endurance is mental strength. It's all about heart.

[When working on a book] I have an almost complete detachment from the world I live in, a sort of armor against distraction. I talk to people, move about, appear on the surface much as usual. But later on I have only a confused memory of what has happened during that period.

I like spaghetti because you don't have to take your eyes off the book to pick about among it, it's all the same.

You are truly focused when you're so focused that you don't know you're focused.

I raised you to be a thoroughbred. When thoroughbreds run, they wear blinders to keep their eyes focused straight ahead with no distractions, no other horses. They hear the crowd, but they don’t listen. They just run their own race. That’s what you have to do. Don’t listen to anyone comparing you to me or to anyone else. You just run your own race.

When you constantly hear people talking about going the distance, going the distance, you can't help but wonder about it. I learned a lesson: next time I will fight my fight without that doubt.

It is amazing how little effort most people make to improve control of their attention. If reading a book seems too difficult, instead of sharpening concentration we tend to set it aside and instead turn on the television, which not only requires minimal attention, but in fact tends to diffuse what little it commands with choppy editing, commercial interruptions, and generally inane content.

It got so that when he closed his eyes, letters and words danced in his mind. He thought of little else during that time.

The ability to work hard for days on end without losing focus is a talent. The ability to keep absorbing new information after many hours of study is a talent.

This is the great luxury of not working: the moment you read a book that has nothing to do with work, you know you're really relaxed. And I have a sh*t attention span. I can't concentrate for more than five minutes.

If the reader enters a kind of immersive experience reading a book, then I have to enter a kind of immersive state to do my best work.

The essential thing ‘in heaven and earth’ is that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.

When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick