A Quote by Julia Alvarez

But the sensibility of the writer, whether fiction or poetry, comes from paying attention. I tell my students that writing doesn't begin when you sit down to write. It's a way of being in the world, and the essence of it is paying attention.

Julia Alvarez

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Attention Begin Being Down Essence Fiction Paying Poetry Sensibility Sit Students Tell Way Whether World Write Writer Writing

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Julia Alvarez
American - Novelist
Born: March 27, 1950

In certain ways, we, many of us, stopped paying attention to the world. I have to think we would have moved on the whole climate issue in a different way if we'd been paying better attention.

Karen Joy Fowler

I think the business of writing a great deal of it is the business of paying attention to your characters, to the world they live in, to the story you have to tell, but just a kind of deep attention and out of that if you pay attention properly the story will tell you what it needs.

Salman Rushdie

But writers experience the world and themselves in a unique way. We look for meaning. We see it even when we are not paying attention, which is seldom because, as writers, paying attention is what we do. We are scribes to the ticking of the days, and we have a job to do. We are not at peace unless we are doing it.

Larry Brooks

There's no certainty to the next couple of years, but people are paying attention now. And I want to put out a record when people are paying attention, because that's when it has the best chance of being heard.

Andrew McMahon

Poetry is a way of always paying attention to the world for me; a way of letting the world stick to me instead of being anxious or estranged, just being present in the world.

Mike Young

Everybody is saying, 'ESPN is not cool, no one is paying attention to ESPN, they're all paying attention to the Barstools of the world.' Why? Because we're authentic.

Dave Portnoy

You make a mistake, you better hope I wasn't paying attention and didn't see it, but if I catch you doing it and you think I'm not paying attention, then that's when you get in trouble.

Anthony Johnson

Sometimes during the day, I consciously focus on some ordinary object and allow myself a momentary "paying-attention." This paying-attention gives meaning to my life. I don't know who it was, but someone said that careful attention paid to anything is a window into the universe. Pausing to think this way, even for a brief moment, is very important. It gives quality to my day.

Robert Fulghum

You think everybody's paying attention to what you're doing. No, they're paying attention to what's interesting to them.

Bob Lefsetz

I try to impress upon my students the importance of looking, listening... paying attention, in other words. You must pay attention.

Nikki Giovanni

Life makes writing poetry necessary to prove I really was paying attention.

Mark Strand

Are you such a dreamer To put the world to rights? I'll stay home forever Where two and two always makes a five I'll lay down the tracks Sandbag and hide January has April's showers And two and two always makes a five It's the devil's way now There is no way out You can SCREAM and you can shout It is too late now Because... You have not been Payin' attention! Payin' attention! Payin' attention! Payin' attention! You have not been paying attention!

Thom Yorke

We say that children are bad at paying attention, but we really mean that they're bad at not paying attention - they easily get distracted by anything interesting.

Alison Gopnik

Poetry is paying attention to life when all the world seems asleep to its beauties and truths.

John J. Geddes

There is ecstasy in paying attention. You can get into a kind of Wordsworthian openness to the world, where you see in everything the essence of holiness.

Anne Lamott

AC/DC, Def Leppard, Alice Cooper - I learned stories of all these guys. That's when I fell in love with Queen, which is one of my favorite bands of all time... I started paying attention to what made music good. I started paying attention to why I liked it.

Rico Love

A Quote by Julia Alvarez

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