Date: 2005

"Odd things were unearthed, bits of memory that must have been floating around like the fragment of bone inside my knee."

— McCarthy, Tom (b. 1969)

Date: 2006

"Weber still saw the rarest of butterflies, fluttering mind, its paired wings pinned to the film in obscene detail."

— Powers, Richard (b. 1957)

Date: 2008

"There is tremendous precision and gentleness in the practice: the precision of noticing what is happending, the waterfall of thought; the gentleness of being nonjudgmental, not rejecting the busy mind. Over time, acknowledging that we are thinking and coming back to breath, the waterfall gradual...

— Barker, Phil

Date: 2008

"When people begin to practise mindfulness they are usually surprised to discover how busy the mind is: like a waterfall, one thought tumbling after the next."

— Barker, Phil

Date: 2009

"One day quite soon, probably within the year, he will walk out of a room and never see her again, and this thought is so hard to conceive of that he shoves it away violently, concentrating instead on himself: his hangover, how tired he feels, how the pain throbs in his temples as he trots down t...

— Nicholls, David (b. 1966)

Date: 2009, trans. 2012

"As all the thoughts and images of consciousness began to move in directions over which I had no control, and I seemed to be lying there watching them, like a kind of lazy sheepdog of the mind, I knew sleep was around the corner."

— Knausgaard, Karl Ove (b. 1968)

Date: May 21, 2011

"My thoughts turn into the cowbirds wandering among the horses’ hooves."

— Klinkenbourg, Verlyn (b. 1952)

Date: May 12, 2014

"For a study published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, they imaged the brains of meditators while they went through four basic mental movements: focusing on a chosen target, noticing that their minds had wandered, bringing their minds back to the target, and sustaining their focus there."

— Goleman, Daniel (b. 1946)

Date: August, 2014

"A universe of information swirled around in his brain."

— Thomas, Matthew

Date: May 18, 2015

"He told me that, while many people find that walking or jogging shakes ideas loose from the subconscious, he needs to quell all physical activity."

— Colapinto, John (b. 1958)