I think my grandmother actually smelled like a cookie and that's enough to get any child's attention.

-Bailey, F(rancis) Lee
Quoted by Phyllis Hanes in Christian Science Monitor,15  Jun 1988.

Being a husband isawhole-timejob.That iswhysomany husbands fail. They cannot give their entire attention to it.

-Bennett, (Enoch) Arnold
  The Title, act1.

A democracy must remain at home in all matters that affect the nature of her institutions. Theyare of a nature to call for the undivided attention and devotion of the entire nation.We do not want the racial antipathies or national antagonisms of the Old World transformed to this continentöas they will, should we becomea part of European politics. The people of this country are overwhelmingly for a policy of neutrality.

-Borah,William Edgar
  Radio broadcast, 22 Feb.

   The naturalist in England, in his walks, enjoys a great advantage over others in frequently meeting with something worthy of attention; here he suffers a pleasant nuisance in not being able to walk a hundred yards without being fairly tied to the spot by some new and wondrous creature.

-Darwin, Charles Robert
  In Brazil.  Journey of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited duringthe Voyage of HMS 'Beagle' Round the World (published1839).

   Let us fix our attention out of ourselves as much as possible; let us chase our imagination to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of the universe; we never really advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can conceive any kind of existence, but those perceptions, which have appeared in that narrow compass.

-Hume, David
  A  Treatise of Human Nature, bk.1, pt.2, section 6.

You learn to love by lovingöby paying attention and doing what one thereby discovers has to be done.

-Huxley, Aldous Leonard
  Time Must Have a Stop.

I had often wondered why young women should marry, as they have so much more freedom, and so much more attention paid to them while unmarried, than when married.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  Remark, 25 Mar. Quoted in  James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.2.

   It is to what I have called the Apes of God that I am drawing your attentionöthose prosperous mountebanks who alternately imitate and mock at and traduce those figures they at once admire and hate.

-Lezama Lima,Jose¤
  The Apes of God, pt.3.

Economics is the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between scarce resources and ends which have alternative uses† It does not attempt to pick out certain kinds of behaviour, but focusesattentionona particular aspect of behaviour, the form imposed by the influence of scarcity.

-Market
  An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science, p.16^17.

His socks compelled one's attention without losing one's respect.

-Saki pseudonym of  Hector Hugh Munro
The Chronicles of Clovis,'Ministers of Grace'.

I open with a clock striking, to beget an awful attention in the audience: it also marks the time, which is four o'clock in the morning, and saves a description of the rising sun, and a great deal about gilding the eastern hemisphere. 788

-Sheridan, Richard Brinsley
  Mr Puff, of his tragedy 'The Spanish Armada'.The Critic, act 2, sc.2.

I envy paranoids; they actually feel people are paying attention to them. 804

-Sontag, Susan
  In Time Out,19 Aug.

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract ourattention from serious things. Theyare but improved means to an unimproved end.

-Thoreau, Henry David
  Walden, or Life in theWoods,'Economy'.