Mark Z. Danielewski Quotes

He has the attention span of a hummingbird.

I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the 'monkey mind' -- the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl.

Curiosity is the most superficial of all the affections; it changes its object perpetually; it has an appetite which is very sharp, but very easily satisfied, and it has always an appearance of giddiness, restlessness and anxiety.

I can't sit still.

The precariatised mind is one without anchors, flitting from subject to subject, in the extreme suffering from attention deficit disorder. But it is also nomadic in its dealings with other people.

I have to keep myself busy all the time.

I have been devoured all my life by an incurable and burning impatience: and to this day find all oratory, biography, operas, films, plays, books, and persons, too long.

Normally, we do not so much look at things as overlook them.

What is the difference between attention and inattention? What is attention and what is concentration? ...Attention has no centre.

The man who spends his time choosing one resort after another in a hunt for peace and quiet will in every place he visits find something to prevent him from relaxing.

It's a mystery to me how anyone ever gets any nourishment in this place. They must eat their meals standing up by the window so as to be sure of not missing anything.

I'm bad at a ton of things. I'm bad at sitting still. I'm bad at basketball. My worst habit is that while people are talking, I will already be thinking three other things. It's rude. Sometimes if the person is very in tune and they notice, they're like "Where are you right now?"

[Smoking] was a comfort, an occupation, a drug, a casual habit, a distraction, a way to not eat, a way to not pay attention, a way to not feel.

I've got the attention span of a child.

The always-connected culture isn't as much a contributor as Grace might think. The nervous mind, the monkey mind, will create its own noise. It doesn't need a new toy.

The general remedy of those who are uneasy without knowing the cause is change of place.

The fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world Have hung upon the beatings of my heart.

For some of us love comes into the room, kicks her shoes off, finds the most comfortable sofa, and lies down, rests, has no intention of going anywhere. For others love walks in smoking a cigarette, checking her watch every two seconds, jittery, with one hand on the doorknob, heart rate up, always in sprinter’s position, ready to run.

She sifted, sighed, and stared up at the ceiling, trying to think about anything but Lord Maccoon, her current predicament, or Lord Akeldama's safety. Which meant she could do nothing but reflect on the complex plight of her mama's more recent embroidery project. Thins, in itself, was a worse torture than any her captors could devise.

If you are bored, you are not paying attention.

The sounds of silence are a dim recollection now, like mystery, privacy and paying attention to one thing — or one person — at a time.

But that day I was anxious. I was nervous and worried, uneasy and distracted. I paced around and never felt settled. I didn't care for the sensation, yet I realized it was possibly a natural progression of my evolving soul, and therefore I tried my best to embrace it.

If my attention is wandering, there is somewhere it wants to go, so obviously it does not want to be where I am holding it in the name of some self-styled obligation.

Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy, when great ones are not in the way: for want of a block he will stumble at a straw.

I didn't dare let my mind wander off.