A Quote by Derren Brown

In my 20s, I just had to be the centre of attention all the time. I was quite eccentric. — © Derren Brown
In my 20s, I just had to be the centre of attention all the time. I was quite eccentric.
I know some players like being the centre of attention and I admit that when I first became a player I liked fame, too. But that feeling lasted only for three months. Then I realised what it was really like to be the centre of attention all the time. It isn't all good.
Perhaps an eccentric is just off centre - ex-centric. But that contradicts a belief of mine that we've got to be centrifugal.
So many little girls dream about their wedding day. But with actresses, sometimes it's the inverse, because we get to be the centre of attention, looked up and down, dressed up for premieres all the time. The pull isn't quite as great.
When I read or study, I don't do it for the degree - if I fail, it doesn't matter, but it just takes me out of this world where you're the centre of attention all the time. You just become a normal bloke when you're setting yourself those kinds of targets.
I'm in a difficult position in the sense that, preposterous as this might sound, I don't like being the centre of attention. I get up on stage every night and play songs, but I almost feel the songs are the centre of attention. I don't like opening my birthday presents in front of people, either.
It's quite an interesting time, the '20s, because the politics of England were changing quite a lot, and the class structure was starting to shift a little.
I had a mother who was very emotionally demanding, wanting to be the centre of attention. As they say in EastEnders, she thought it was all about 'er. I spent a lot of time trying to work out what was going on.
I was one of those whose school report would always say, 'Could pay more attention.' I spent my time trying to be the centre of attention or the class joker instead of knuckling down. Far from the perfect student.
What is the difference between attention and inattention? What is attention and what is concentration? ...Attention has no centre.
My parents were fantastic. I was an only child, so I had a lot of love and too much attention. I don't think I was spoilt. My mother was quite a disciplinarian, but I did have a lot of attention and quite a lot of pressure to do well at whatever I was doing.
The self is not only the centre but also the whole circumference which embraces both conscious and unconscious; it is the centre of this totality, just as the ego is the centre of consciousness.
I had a natural aptitude for wanting to be the centre of attention and a definite skill for annoying people.
There was a time in my late teens and early 20s where I was motivated by this wanting to get out, to prove to the world that I had something to offer - that kind of youthful spirit, where maybe I had my eye on fame and fortune. I mellowed out in my late 20s and now that I'm in my early 30s, I'm coming to peace with it.
I had one goal. I wanted people to really learn the tools that could change, because I taught finance for years, I network with people in their 20s, obviously, and all ages I've worked with. But I wanted to just take that to another level, and I also, quite frankly, was just angry. I was angry about the level of abuse I saw in 2008 that happened to people. I knew what happened, I had made a fortune during that time because when things melt down - and they're going to again; life is cyclical - it's one of the greatest opportunities in your life.
If you are playing King Lear you are the centre of attention anyway. You don't need to draw attention to yourself. It's all laid out for you.
If you had asked me, did I have everything nailed down and wired about what I wanted to do, and was I following some real plan? No. In fact, by the time I was in my mid-20s or even late-20s, and I was still in the law firm, I really was starting to get a little nervous that I didn't know what I was going to do.
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