The Art of Noticing: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration, and Discover Joy in the Everyday

Looking for an answer instead of the answer can shift and broaden your vision.

Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.”

The key isn’t not speaking at all—it’s speaking only when necessary.

Deep attention is good for the soul.

You should be able to go into a room and when you come out know everything that you saw there and not only that. If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling. Try that for practice.

“We follow the Rule of St. Benedict,” this monk explained, “and the first word of that rule is ‘Listen.’ That’s the great ethical element of silence: to check my words and listen to another point of view.”

Barry Schwartz, a Swarthmore psychology professor and the author of The Paradox of Choice—argue

There’s no reason to learn how to show you’re paying attention, if you are in fact paying attention. —CELESTE HEADLEE

As writer Jeffrey Kastner observed: “Attention to the world is the proper vocation not just of the artist but of anyone who imagines it as a place worthy of preservation.”