“Countless pleasures are wasted through ignorance and a want of skill and attention.”

“All forms of meditation strengthen & direct our attention through the cultivation of three key skills: concentration, mindfulness & compassion or lovingkindness.”

“Just ignore him and he’ll go away, my mother used to say to Gillian when we were young and I bugged her. Just ignore him. All he wants is attention. In retrospect there seems to be something almost cruel about that—to simultaneously acknowledge and refuse someone’s desire for attention—especially a child’s. All he wants is attention, as if it’s bad to want attention, like wanting money or power or fame.”

“Time after time, history demonstrates that when people don't want to believe something, they have enormous skills of ignoring it altogether.”

“At best Americans give but a limited attention to history. Too much happens too rapidly, and before we can evaluate it, or exhaust its meaning or pleasure, there is something new to concern us. Ours is the tempo of the motion picture, not that of the still camera, and we waste experience as we wasted the forest.”

“Even the most skillful deceit is wasted on a man's mother.”