A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention Quotes

“The problem was me.
If you are the problem, then no matter where you go the problem will come along for the ride. Whatever dream you follow, whatever supposedly virgin territory you travel to, and however many times you tell yourself that it's unblemished: if you are the problem there is no escape.”
― Rebecca Schiller, A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention: Discovering the Beauty of My ADHD Mind―A Memoir

“Then plans, tasks, and to-do lists start to intrude, with each thought spawning at least two more—a family tree whose descendants multiply at speed. If I don’t send this email, plant this seed, finish this work, order this part, then I won’t be able to do something else tomorrow; the impact of today traveling down a chain that stretches far into the future.”
― Rebecca Schiller, A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention: Discovering the Beauty of My ADHD Mind - A Memoir

“Over the past couple of years my capacity for almost everything in life has shrunk dramatically.”
― Rebecca Schiller, Earthed

“Sometimes I have all this energy, I'm unstoppable and I can do all these things at once, really fast, and then it keeps going, like a whirlwind and I can't stop it. Then other times I'm so muddled and I can't manage, so confused and angry and upset. I don't understand it.”
― Rebecca Schiller, A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention: Discovering the Beauty of My ADHD Mind―A Memoir

“And all is well and beautiful as long as I keep moving. Why do I ever stop moving? Why did we stop moving, us nomads? What compelled us to settle down?”
― Rebecca Schiller, A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention: Discovering the Beauty of My ADHD Mind―A Memoir

“Slowly at first and then faster and faster, a mechanized spitting of competing ideas that manage to gang up on me and go to war with each other.”
― Rebecca Schiller, A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention: Discovering the Beauty of My ADHD Mind - A Memoir

“I envy Honk’s knowledge of who she is and what she needs and how that surety doesn’t make her any less able to roll with the changes too.”
― Rebecca Schiller, A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention: Discovering the Beauty of My ADHD Mind - A Memoir

“This plot of land distorts in the presence of other things too. It expands and contracts in response to how I feel in it. When I’m overwhelmed, it is a universe whose edges I can never hope to touch—let alone weed—and when I am fired up by a new idea that just won’t fit,”
― Rebecca Schiller, A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention: Discovering the Beauty of My ADHD Mind - A Memoir

“They are equally loud, equally important, and are all speeding away from me at an equally fast pace.”
― Rebecca Schiller, A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention: Discovering the Beauty of My ADHD Mind - A Memoir

“learning that while moving at a pace of “pretend I am being chased by a rabid dog and then go a bit faster” gets things done for a while, there are consequences. If I keep it up for too long I risk an abrupt and jarring stop.”
― Rebecca Schiller, A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention: Discovering the Beauty of My ADHD Mind - A Memoir

“of smoke and mirrors held together with shame.”
― Rebecca Schiller, A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention: Discovering the Beauty of My ADHD Mind - A Memoir