Grappling Quotes

I often wonder what Einstein would have done in my position. At Peterson, I kept an Einstein poster in my room, the one that says 'Imagination is more important than knowledge.' Einstein was smart, maybe even as smart as Laserator, but he played it way too safe. Then again, nobody ever threw a grappling hook at Einstein. I like to think he would have enjoyed my work, if he could have seen it. But no one sees anything I do, not until it's hovering over Chicago. ~ Austin Grossman

He reaches for a few strands of my hair, twining them around his finger. "You busy later?"
"I was supposed to go to a meet-and-greet in Fairport with Mom, but I told her I needed to study for SATs."
"She believed this? It's summer, Sam."
"Nan's got me signed up for this crazy prep simulation. And . . . I might have told Mom when she was a little distracted."
"But not intentionally, of course."
"Of course not," I say.
"So if I were to come see you after eight, you'd be studying."
"Absolutely. But I might want a . . . study buddy. Because I might be grappling with some really tough problems."
"Grappling, huh?"
"Tussling with," I say. "Wrestling. Handling."
"Gotcha. Sounds like I should bring protective gear to study with you." Jase grins at me.
"You're pretty tough. You'll be fine. ~ Huntley Fitzpatrick

And so on, until you arrive at the other side, among the purely abstract self-harming: the grinding over your failures, the refusal to remember anything good, the determination to ensure - if anyone falls into the mistake of making it clear they actually like you - that the next time round they change their opinion pronto. Emotional self-cannibalism, in other words, like those tessellated pictures of a person grappling with a mirror image of himself. ~ Alexander Masters

My basic philosophy of teaching was straightforward and deeply personal. I wanted to teach the way I wished that I myself had been taught. Which is to say, I hoped to convey the sheer joy of learning, the thrill of understanding things about the universe. I wanted to pass along to students not only the logic but the beauty of math and science. Furthermore, I wanted to do this in a way that would be equally helpful to kids studying a subject for the first time and for adults who wanted to refresh their knowledge; for students grappling with homework and for older people hoping to keep their minds active and supple. ~ Salman Khan

A man who should undertake to inquire into everything for himself, could devote to each thing but little time and attention. His task would keep his mind in perpetual unrest, which would prevent him from penetrating to the depth of any truth, or of grappling his mind indissolubly to any conviction. His intellect would be at once independent and powerless. He must therefore make his choice from amongst the various objects of human belief, and he must adopt many opinions without discussion, in order to search the better into that smaller number which he sets apart for investigation. It is true that whoever receives an opinion on the word of another, does so far enslave his mind; but it is a salutary servitude which allows him to make a good use of freedom.

A principle of authority must then always occur, under all circumstances, in some part or other of the moral and intellectual world. Its place is variable, but a place it necessarily has. The independence of individual minds may be greater, or it may be less: unbounded it cannot be. Thus the question is, not to know whether any intellectual authority exists in the ages of democracy, but simply where it resides and by what standard it is to be measured. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, Argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew,
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue. ~ Alfred The Great

I have been grappling for years with the question of whether experiencing difficulty dealing with real life is what drives people to become actors. ~ Naseeruddin Shah

It never occurred to me that any of these pleasures were a reward for being a pretty good kid, any more than I needed to restructure my life just to avoid an eternity of being spit-roasted on a subterranean barbecue. If this sounds flip, smug, or disrespectful, it's not meant to be. Obviously, there is great wisdom, beauty, and relevance in millennia worth of collected theological teaching from around the world. The question I'm grappling with is: why didn't these big themes and major stick-and-carrot extremes resonate with me? I just never bought into the concept. Maybe I'm part of a small minority, but I don't think so. ~ Michael J. Fox

See yourself reacting to threats, not by running away or evading them, but by meeting them, dealing with them, grappling with them in an aggressive intelligent manner. ~ Maxwell Maltz

One of the most important revelations about a period comes in its theory of language, for that informs us whether language is viewed as a bridge to the noumenal or as a body of fictions convenient for grappling with transitory phenomena. ~ Richard M. Weaver

People say that I'm a boxer. I actually started with kick boxing, and then I moved onto boxing, and then I moved onto grappling. ~ Conor McGregor

When we are grappling with misery and our heart is in a knot, we may well do better to snap back to a new reality, make choices, refine and consolidate our self-image; and remodel the mould of our identity. ("Camera obscura of the mind" ) ~ Erik Pevernagie

Fifth, I think that you [Daniel Dennett] and Richard are absolute disasters in the fight against intelligent design - we are losing this battle, not the least of which is the two new supreme court justices who are certainly going to vote to let it into classrooms - what we need is not knee-jerk atheism but serious grappling with the issues - neither of you are willing to study Christianity seriously and to engage with the ideas - it is just plain silly and grotesquely immoral to claim that Christianity is simply a force for evil, as Richard claims - more than this, we are in a fight, and we need to make allies in the fight, not simply alienate everyone of good will."

"William Dembski. "Remarkable exchange between Michael Ruse and Daniel Dennett" "
2006 ~ Michael Ruse

When you're dealing with an ambivalent relationship, you're constantly on guard, grappling with questions of trust. ~ Adam Grant

She is convinced that when language dies, out of carelessness, disuse, indifference and absence of esteem, or killed by fiat, not only she herself, but all users and makers are accountable for its demise. In her country children have bitten their tongues off and use bullets instead to iterate the voice of speechlessness, of disabled and disabling language, of language adults have abandoned altogether as a device for grappling with meaning, providing guidance, or expressing love. ~ Toni Morrison

Men's activities are occupied into ways
in grappling with external circumstances and in striving to set things at one in their own topsy-turvy mind. ~ William James

Thorne blinked at her, then down at the sewage he could barely make out in the darkness. "Don't you have some tool in that fancy hand of yours that can get us across?"
Cinder glared, light-headed from her body's instinctively short breaths. "Oh, wow, how could I have forgotten about my grappling hook? ~ Marissa Meyer

Nothing brings home the fragility of the banking system or the potency of a financial crisis more vividly than writing about these issues from the eye of the storm. Watching the world's central bankers and finance officials grappling with the current situation - trying one thing after another to restore confidence, throwing everything they can at the problem, coping daily with unexpected and startling shifts in market sentiment - reinforces the lesson that there is no magic bullet or simple formula for dealing with financial panics. ~ Liaquat Ahamed

Sometimes my poetry is an attempt to keep off existential terror; sometimes it is a grappling with philosophical problems; sometimes just fun. ~ Gwen Harwood

Can you imagine those poor bastards grappling their prey, leaping over the rails, swords in hand, screaming 'Your cats! Give us all your god-damned cats! ~ Scott Lynch

There's something to play if there's conflict going on. Whatever that conflict is, that's where drama is; if the character is grappling with something you've got something to play, there's layers to it. ~ Clive Owen

The Soviets were worried that the Americans would attack their "sparkling new Mir space station, ... in a space shuttle, throw out grappling hooks, forcibly board the peaceful habitat and claim it as captured territory. To the hard-core Soviet mind-set, the American government was an unstable combination of cowboys and gangsters, unpredictable and capable of any insane action. The cosmonauts would have to be armed against outrageous aggression. ~ James Mahaffey

It's fun to think that one day our great, great grandchildren may get that much closer to understanding what the hell creation is doing here in the first place, and glimpsing the underlying structure and nature of matter itself. Hopefully they won't live with the same existential horrors we all quietly face today in our own lives.

There is a kind of bravery to our condition, I reckon: brought into being without an explanation, in a potentially infinite and apparently dead universe, and expected to just get on with it as though nothing strange is going on. Well it fucking is. And it's all right to have a meltdown about the whole affair from time to time, faced with the pressures of modern existence, trying to be a good human and a good worker and a good son/daughter/parent, trying to be a good citizen, trying to be wise without condescension but uninhibited without recklessness, trying to just muddle through without making any silly decisions, trying to align with the correct political opinions, trying to stay thin, trying to be attractive, trying to be smart, trying to find the ideal partner, trying to stay financially secure, trying to just find some modest corner of meaning and belonging and sanity to go and sit in, and all the while living on the edge of dying forever.

We're all in the same strange boat, grappling with the same strange condition. But it isn't quite so scary if we all do it together. So let's do it together. ~ Exurb1a

Why incentivize laziness? High-school students shouldn't be discouraged from grappling, sometimes unsuccessfully, with challenging books, pictures, and songs. A really, really good work of art doesn't bow down to you; you step up to it, and it rewards you. In the end, kids faced with what Chaucer actually wrote may still dislike him, and I'm fine with that; they will have earned that opinion rather than had it handed to them. For heaven's sake, it's easy for kids to see themselves and their peers in a rap song. When they can start to see themselves in a 14th-century poem, then they're actually learning something. ~ Jeff Sypeck

I've been here before, dreaming myself
backwards, among grappling hooks of light.
True to the seasons, I've lived every word
spoken. Did I walk into someone's nightmare? ~ Yusef Komunyakaa

The theologian is interested specifically in the modern novel because there he sees reflected the man of our time, the unbeliever, who is nevertheless grappling in a desperate and usually honest way with intense problems of the spirit. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Books are really, really hard to write. They represent a kind of a summit of grappling with what one really has to say ~ Jaron Lanier

When I am grappling with ideas which are radical enough to upset grown-ups, then I am likely to put these ideas into a story which will be marketed for children, because children understand what their parents have rejected and forgotten. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

A dachshund came out of the bushes. Ruzena's father extended his pole toward him, but the dog alertly evaded it and ran over to the boy, who lifted him up and hugged him. Other old men rushed over to help Ruzena's father and tear the dachshund out of the boy's arms. The boy was crying, shouting, and grappling with them so that the old men had to twist his arms and put a hand over his mouth because his cries were attracting too much attention from the passersby, who were turning to look but not daring to intervene. [...] Jakub was leading the dog by the collar toward the hotel steps when one of the old men shouted: "Release that dog at once!"
And the other old man: "In the name of the law!"
Jakub pretended not to notice the old men and kept going, but behind him a pole slowly descended alongside his body and the wire loop wavered clumsily over the boxer's head.
Jakub grabbed the end of the pole and brusquely pushed it aside.
A third old man ran up and shouted: "Its an attack on law and order! I'm going to call the police!"
And the high-pitched voice of another old man complained: "He ran on the grass! He ran in the playground, where it's prohibited! He pissed in the kids' sandbox! Do you like dogs more than children?"
The boxer scampered around the room curiously, unaware that he had just escaped danger. Jakub stretched out on the daybed, wondering what to do with him. He liked the lively, good-natured dog. The insouciance with which, in a f ~ Milan Kundera

America is grappling with cultural diversity, and I just want to put a show on that represents the world in which I live. ~ David Alan Grier

Christ! Garreth!" Lachlain shot to his feet, weak and stumbling. Dragging Emma to his side, half carrying her, he lurched out of the room and down the stairs. Regin and Annika followed, demanding to know what was happening.
Inside the half-basement, they found Wroth alongside Garreth, grappling to hold up the ceiling.
The vampire's voice was incongruously calm when he asked, "What kind of idiot would find this a worthy plan?"
In an astounded tone, Lachlain said to Emma, "Your family's adding in-laws like him?"
The vampire's gaze fell to Lachlain's hand clutching Emma's, and he raised an eyebrow. "Indeed. ~ Kresley Cole

there must be a continuous struggle, a constant fight, an unremitting grappling with our lower nature, till the higher want is actually felt and the victory is achieved. ~ Swami Vivekananda

The burly woodsman who attaks the diminutive pine of the east must experience remorse, as would a strong man who made war upon a boy, but [the Redwood] is something to compel his respect; he must feel that in grappling with these monsters he is doing the work of a Hercules. ~ Jared Farmer

Lonzo made a show of patting down his pockets "Damn, I must have left my rope and grappling hook in my other pants. ~ Alexis Morgan

A red-tailed hawk rose high on an air current, calling out shrill, sequential rasps of raptor joy. She scanned the sky for another one. Usually when they spoke like that, they were mating. Once she'd seen a pair of them coupling on the wing, grappling and clutching each other and tumbling curve-winged through the air in hundred-foot death dives that made her gasp, though always they uncoupled and sailed outward and up again just before they were bashed to death in senseless passion. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Everybody needs friends who uplift them. Assess who makes you feel good, and look to those people for support when you're grappling with a situation that cannot be helped. ~ Candice Kumai

I think I was the first executive to ever speak at a Greenpeace business conference, in London in 2001. That didn't play well here at Ford, but I thought it was an important signal to send internally, that these were the kind of issues we needed to be grappling with. ~ William Clay Ford, Jr.

For now, as he drifted toward dreaming, what came to him were not images of grappling and lust, but a sort of phantom copy of the bed where he lay, a dream of future days where he shared such a bed with a woman who had a claim on him, and who claimed him in return. ~ Karen A. Wyle

The point all these people had in common was how little freedom they seemed to enjoy. They were grappling with their beliefs, and these beliefs restricted their choices by dictating their behavior. ~ Laurent Gounelle

You don't learn to write by going through a series of preset writing exercises. You learn to write by grappling with a real subject that truly matters to you. ~ Ralph Fletcher

When tadpole was born, I spent a sleepless night on the maternity ward gazing intently into her inky, newborn eyes, grappling to come to terms with the indisputable fact that this was an actual person looking back at me, not just a version of Mr Frog, or me, or both, in miniature. From the outset she seemed to know what she wanted, and I realised I could have no inkling of the paths she would choose to follow. But if I watch her life unfold carefully enough, perhaps I will see clear signposts pointing to who or what she will become.
Because when I look backwards, ransacking my own past for clues with the clarity that only hindsight can bring, several defining moments do stand out. Moments charged with significance; snapshots of myself which, if I were to join the dots together, lead me unswervingly to where I stand today. ~ Catherine Sanderson

Only one thing can keep something close over time: holding it there. Grappling with it. Wrestling it to the ground, as Jacob did with the angel, and refusing to let go. What we don't wrestle we let go of. Love isn't the absence of struggle. Love is struggle. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Drop your false ideas. See through people. If you see through yourself, you will see through everyone. Then you will love them. Otherwise you spend the whole time grappling with your wrong notions of them, with your illusions that are constantly crashing against reality. ~ Anthony De Mello

'Memory.' 'Race.' 'Murder.' That's what they say about me. I am an elegiac poet. I have some historical questions, and I'm grappling with ways to make sense of history; why it still haunts us in our most intimate relationships with each other, but also in our political decisions. ~ Natasha Trethewey

I remember the Chillicothe ballplayers grappling the Long Island ball players in a sixteen-inning game ended by darkness. And the shoulders of the Chillicothe players were a red smoke against the sundown and the shoulders of the Rock Island players were a yellow smoke against the sundown. And the umpire's voice was hoarse calling balls and strikes and outs and the umpire's throat fought in the dust for a song. ~ Carl Sandburg

Emergencies are crucibles that contain and reveal the daily, slower-burning problems of medicine and beyond - our vulnerabilities; our trouble grappling with uncertainty, how we die, how we prioritize and divide what is most precious and vital and limited; even our biases and blindnesses. ~ Sheri Fink

The crew of the Argo II assembled at the rail and cut the grappling lines. Piper brought out her new horn of plenty and, on Percy's direction, willed it to spew Diet Coke, which came out with the strength of a fire hose, dousing the enemy deck. Percy thought it would take hours, but the ship sank remarkably fast, filling with Diet Coke and seawater. "Dionysus," Percy called, holding up Chrysaor's golden mask. "Or Bacchus - whatever. You made this victory possible, even if you weren't here. Your enemies trembled at your name ... or your Diet Coke, or something. So, yeah, thank you." The words were hard to get out, but Percy managed not to gag. "We give this ship to you as tribute. We hope you like it." "Six million in gold," Leo muttered. "He'd better like it. ~ Rick Riordan

Or we could use my grappling hook." I pulled a metal tube, four inches long, from my pocket.
"Who carries a grappling hook?"
"Standard issue. A girl has to be prepared. ~ Karen Akins

If, therefore, those called to office and leadership roles in the church remain content merely to organize and manage the internal affairs of the church, they are leaving a vacuum exactly where there ought to be vibrant, pulsating life. Of course Christian leaders need to be trained and equipped for management, for running of the organization. The church will not thrive by performing in a bumbling, amateur fashion and hoping that piety and goodwill will make up for incompetence. But how much more should a Christian minister be a serious professional when it comes to grappling with scripture and discovering how it enables him or her, in preaching, teaching, prayer, and pastoral work, to engage with the huge issues that confront us as a society and as individuals. If we are professional about other things, we ought to be ashamed not to be properly equipped both to study the Bible ouselves and to bring its ever-fresh word to others. ~ N. T. Wright

They gaped as if they'd never seen a ridiculously handsome bleeding man in a turquoise waistcoat fall through a rubbish hole and then save himself with a grappling hook before. What DID they do for fun in New Eden? ~ Meljean Brook

Forgive and forget is the divine ideal. Grappling with the hurt while biting your tongue and struggling to refuse justifiable vengeance―that's closer to human reality. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

The medal from an old grappling tournament will not serve me today, but the courage I developed in its acquisition will. By investing in yourself, by using all endeavors as a vehicle to shape who we are, we exist in the present moment with a lifetime of growth behind us. I have loved many vehicles throughout the years, Jiu Jitsu more than any other, but the vehicle has, and always will, be a distant second to the driver. ~ Chris Matakas

Talking of being eaten by dogs, there's a dachshund at Brinkley who when you first meet him will give you the impression that he plans to convert you into a light snack between his regular meals. Pay no attention. It's all eyewash. His belligerent attitude is simply - "
Sound and fury signifying nothing, sir?"
That's it. Pure swank. A few civil words, and he will be grappling you ... What's the expression I've heard you use?"
Grappling me to his soul with hoops of steel, sir?"
In the first two minutes. He wouldn't hurt a fly, but he has to put up a front because his name's Poppet. One can readily appreciate that when a dog hears himself addressed day in and day out as Poppet, he feels he must throw his weight about. Is self-respect demands it."
Precisely, sir."
You'll like Poppet. Nice dog. Wears his ears inside out. Why do dachshunds wear their ears inside out?"
I could not say, sir."
Nor me. I've often wondered. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Somewhere deeper in the city a motor is running, a distant, earthy growl, like an animal panting. in a few hours the bright blush of morning will push through all that darkness, and shapes will reassert themselves, and people will wake up and yawn and brew coffee and get ready for work, everything the same as usual. Life will go on. Something aches at the very core of me, something ancient and deep and stronger than words: the filament that joins each of us to the root of existence, that ancient thing unfurling and resisting and grappling, desperately for a foothold, a way to stay here, breathe, keep going. ~ Lauren Oliver

Our greatness, our talent has never been the question. It's been a matter of grappling for control over what we do. ~ Spike Lee

grappling in a hernia truss with steel kegs of Yuengling. For ~ Michael Chabon

A colleague once described political theorists as people who were obsessed with two dozen books; after half a century of grappling with Mill's essay On Liberty, or Hobbes's Leviathan, I have sometimes thought two dozen might be a little on the high side. ~ Alan Ryan

Once this bubble of self-deception is burst and the mask that shielded her and others from what she wished to ignore is lifted, it is difficult for the woman to return to her life as it was. It has been said that "the discovery of a deceiving principle, a lying activity within us, can furnish an absolutely new view of all conscious life." This reawakened awareness changes the upscale abused woman's life forever. Suddenly, new choices stand before her. This can be a frightening and sad phase in therapy, a moment when the woman is grappling with a kaleidoscope of loss and potential future gain. Some women experience this period as the dark night of the soul. It can be sickening to face the truths one has chosen to ignore in hopes of maintaining the status quo. Even if the woman wishes to stay married, she will never perceive her life in the same way again. ~ Susan Weitzman

One understands then why woman has no sexual parts, properly speaking. It is because she is herself a sexual part - a sexual part of man, to cumbersome for him to carry around permanently and therefore deposited outside himself for most of the time and taken up when needed. Moreover the quality that distinguishes man from animals is this very power of equipping himself at any moment with an instrument, tool or arm that he needs, but that he can get rid of straight away, whereas the lobster has to drag his two pincers about with him everywhere. And just as mans hand is a sort of grappling hook that enables him to grasp a hammer, sword or fountain pen according to his needs, so his sex is the sort of grappling hook of the sexual parts rather than the sexual part itslef. ~ Michel Tournier

At last the armies clashed at one strategic point, They slammed their shields together, pike scraped pike With the grappling strength of fighters armed in bronze And their round shields pounded, boss on welded boss, And the sound of struggle roared and rocked the earth. The Iliad, Book 4 ~ Rick Atkinson

I'll never get over my grappling for balance, never stop believing life is going to be fair, the minute we can clear up all these mistakes of the temporarily misguided. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

I love to exercise my creativity in many ways but as each year of specialization goes by I feel further and further from my other creative selves. I used to be able to see myself doing many things and sometimes I still long for a job that involves less pressure and grappling with people but, as you say, I am one of the lucky ones so I try to just focus on feeling lucky and carry on! ~ Ani DiFranco

If you can wrestle but not play Jiu Jitsu, or you can play Jiu Jitsu but not wrestle, you are not a complete grappler and lack the sufficient skills to safely subdue an opponent. ~ Chris Matakas

If it's art or literature you're interested in, I suggest you read the Greeks. Pure art exists only in slave-owning societies. The Greeks had slaves to till their fields, prepare their meals, and row their galleys while they lay about on sun-splashed Mediterranean beaches, composing poems and grappling with mathematical equations. That's what art is. If you're the sort of guy who raids the refrigerators of silent kitchens at three o'clock in the morning, you can only write accordingly. That's who I am. ~ Haruki Murakami

She drove home and grabbed the things she would need to check out a book: strong rope and a grappling hook, a compass, a flare gun, matches and a can of hair spray, a sharpened wooden spear, and, of course, her library card. ~ Joseph Fink

Writing is like this
you dredge for the poem's meaning the way police dredge for a body. They think it is down there under the black water, they work the grappling hooks back and forth. ~ Paul Engle

In Keynes's time, physicists were first grappling with the concept of quantum mechanics, which, among other things, imagined a cosmos governed by two entirely different sets of physical laws: one for very small particles, like protons and electrons, and another for everything else. Perhaps sensing that the boring study of economics needed a fresh shot in the arm, Keynes proposed a similar world view in which one set of economic laws came in to play at the micro level (concerning the realm of individuals and families) and another set at the macro level (concerning nations and governments). ~ Peter D. Schiff

There is something deeply authentic about grappling with our fate. It is looking at a long trail of twisted life-decisions that got us spinning into the abyss – so like all things, we have a choice - and for better or worse we spiral.
Embrace the chaos. Go to ruins. ~ Debbie Lynn - 360 Degrees Full Circle

Says Juliet

love wields the scissors
love is the escape
love blows through pinholes
love refuses to die

love holds its breathe though the absence of oxygen
love defines the weight of the pillow
slips free of the knot

love builds a fire out of hope
love climbs a rope of maybe
love trusts the grappling hook to hold

let the world
tell us no
love is the rusted fire escape
that shouldn't support our weight
but does ~ Catherine Linka

The Bible is not an owner's manual containing complete do-it-yourself instructions on how to make the machine of life in relationship to God hum well. No, it is a dramatic script capturing the journeys of a number of faith communities and God-followers throughout the last several thousand years who - based on their knowledge of God, the questions they were grappling with, and the social context in which they lived - improvised on living the abundant life of God. ~ Ron Martoia

Why complain? Does it solve your problems? No. In fact, it attracts problems; compounds them. Complaining attitude carries an unconscious negative charge attached to it. A constantly whining person invariably gets drowned in an ocean of negativity. Complaining can not work as a strategy as we all have finite time and energy and when we complain we lose our valuable time and also our mental peace and happiness. Your attitude defines you; if you are a complainer then you are problem-oriented; you would attract problems, and if you focus on grappling with the problems instead of passive complaining then you are solution-oriented, you would find answers to your problems.

Complaints are akin to the dark clouds that shroud the beaming sun in your life, and the worst part is that these clouds are not capable of even producing a drizzle to wash away your agonies. If you feel like complaining about anything, from your present life situation to any affliction bothering you and making you unhappy, think of your many blessings and rejoice on them. There are countless millions in this world who would sacrifice anything to be in your shoes. ~ Sanjeev Ahluwalia

My soul's a little grief, grappling your chest,
To climb your throat on sobs; easily chased
On other sighs and wiped by fresher winds. ~ Wilfred Owen

You, why are you so afraid of war and slaughter? Even if all the rest of us drop and die around you, grappling for the ships, you'd run no risk of death: you lack the heart to last it out in combat - coward! ~ Homer

I certainly have a very colorful nature, filled with great highs and great lows ... in my early adulthood I probably was grappling with some serious depression issues. ~ Sally Field

Strength instead of being the lusty child of passion, grows by grappling with and subduing them. ~ James M. Barrie

Jiu Jitsu is the vehicle. Not the road. ~ Chris Matakas

To fight the good fight is one of the bravest and noblest of life's experiences. Not the bloodshed and the battle of man with man, but the grappling with mental and spiritual adversaries that determines the inner caliber of the contestant. It is the quality of the struggle put forth by a man that proclaims to the world what manner of man he is far more than may be by the termination of the battle.

It matters not nearly so much to a man that he succeeds in winning some long-sought prize as it does that he has worked for it honestly and unfalteringly with all the force and energy there is in him. It is in the effort that the soul grows and asserts itself to the fullest extent of its possibilities, and he that has worked will, persevering in the face of all opposition and apparent failure, fairly and squarely endeavoring to perform his part to the utmost extent of his capabilities, may well look back upon his labor regardless of any seeming defeat in its result and say, "I have fought a good fight."

As you throw the weight of your influence on the side of the good, the true and the beautiful, your life will achieve an endless splendor. It will continue in the lives of others, higher, finer, nobler than you can even contemplate. ~ Hugh B. Brown

Loss of someone we love cannot be adequately expressed with words. Grappling with loss, struggling with disconnection and despair, fills us with a sense of anguish and actual pain. Indeed, the parts of our brain that process physical pain overlap with the neural centers that record social ruptures and rejection. Loss rips us apart. ~ Daniel J. Siegel

I've really been grappling with depression. It's all linked with my cocaine and ecstasy abuse. ~ Robbie Williams

Instead, it was a Christianity engaged with modernity (and postmodernity) - grappling with its issues, sensitive to its questions and concerns, aware of its spiritual vacuum, in vital dialogue with its artistic and intellectual leaders. It was a "third-way" faith seeking to steer a course that would avoid defensive retreat and isolation on the one hand and capitulation and sellout on the other. ~ Brian D. McLaren

Grappling with fate is like meeting an expert wrestler: to escape, you have to accept the fall when you are thrown. The only thing that counts is whether you get back up. ~ Ming-Dao Deng

I came up during the 'Star Wars' generation and that was sort of the thing I plugged into much more. It was a little before my time and I think it was sort of grappling with these intellectual ideas that were a little advanced for my young mind. At the time. But now I have a much deeper appreciation for it. ~ Zachary Quinto

Most sports require you to master the movements of only your own body to be successful. The combat grappling arts, such as jujitsu, require you to become the master not only of your own movement but also that of your opponent - a far more difficult and complex task. ~ Renzo Gracie

In 2002, four Danish scientists began examining grocery receipts. This may sound like a waste of taxpayer dollars, but in fact it was the kind of experiment other scientists describe as "elegant." For years, science had been grappling with the unexplained health benefits of wine - wine drinkers seemed more resistant to coronary heart disease and certain cancers, but no one knew why. Predictably, there was a large-scale effort to rip wine apart in search of whatever compound was working its peculiar magic on the human body and turn it into a pill. (Resveratrol was one.) The Danish group came at it from a different angle. They didn't need a gas chromatograph. They needed receipts. They wanted to know what else all those healthy wine drinkers were buying when they visited the supermarket. ~ Anonymous

Katsa didn't know how long they'd been grappling when she realized he was laughing. She understood his joy, understood it completely. She'd never had such a fight, she'd never had such an opponent. She was faster than he was offensively-much faster-but he was stronger, and it was as if he had a premonition of her every turn and strike; she'd never known a fighter so quick to defend himself. She was calling up moves she hadn't tried since she was a child, blows she'd only ever imagined having the opportunity to use. They were playing. It was a game. When he pinned her arms behind her back, grabbed her hair, and pushed her face into the dirt, she found that she was laughing as well. ~ Kristin Cashore

I am banished from the patient men who fight.
They smote my heart to pity, built my pride.
Shoulder to aching shoulder, side by side,
They trudged away from life's broad wealds of light.
Their wrongs were mine; and ever in my sight
They went arrayed in honour. But they died,
Not one by one: and mutinous I cried
To those who sent them out into the night.
The darkness tells how vainly I have striven
To free them from the pit where they must dwell
In outcast gloom convulsed and jagged and riven
By grappling guns. Love drove me to rebel.
Love drives me back to grope with them through hell;
And in their tortured eyes I stand forgiven. ~ Siegfried Sassoon

We're grappling with the same issue facing all advanced economies - how to revive growth and distribute its fruits more fairly. An America that can tackle that problem head-on can perhaps help revive a stagnant global economy. ~ David Ignatius

There is the incense of wisdom, whispering, to speak of grace in the dark/there is the scent of primal animals, grappling with the glory of the dark. ~ R. Paul Sardanas

You're a wrestler, right, Jake?" Dad asked, passing Jake more saag. My parents were in an Indian food phase. The evening's entree consisted of limp spinach. God forbid we'd throw a few burgers on the grill and just have a barbecue when guests came over.
Jake gave the bright green, mushy contents a wary glance but accepted the bowl. "Yeah. I wrestle. I'm captain this year."
"How Greco-Roman of you," Lucius said dryly, lifting a glob of spinach and letting it drip, slowly, from his fork. "Grappling about on mats. ~ Beth Fantaskey

He rolled in his bed, twisting the sheets, grappling with a problem years too big for him, awake in the night like a single sentinel on picket. And sometime after midnight, he slept, too, and then only the wind was awake, prying at the hotel and hooting in its gables under the bright gimlet gaze of the stars. ~ Stephen King

It is impossible to stand for intellectual freedom without grappling with censorship. ~ Frances M. Jones

Perhaps it is inescapable that when our lives are in flux, despite the comfort of our beds, we are bound to keep ourselves awake grappling with anxieties - no matter how great or small, how real or imagined. ~ Amor Towles

What was the nature of the universe into which she had been born? Why did it exist at all? If it had a purpose, what was it? These seemed to her the only questions worth exploring. And the only valid technique evolved by humans for exploring such questions was the scientific method, a robust and self-correcting search for the truth. Yet it had become obvious to her since about the age of twelve that science as it had progressed so far – physics, chemistry, biology, all the rest – had only inched towards grappling with the true questions, the fundamentals. Those questions had only been addressed by theologians and philosophers, it seemed to her. Unfortunately, their answers were a mush of doubt, self-delusion and flummery that had probably done more harm than good. And yet that was all there was. ~ Terry Pratchett

"Is it how she moves, or how she looks?" I say it's loneliness suspended to our own like grappling hooks, And as long as she's got noise, she's fine. But I could teach her how I learned to dance when the music's ended. ~ Dar Williams

Well, clearly, for me in the immediate future, it is grappling, like so many other governors are grappling, with the economic woes of these states. We were all hoping to see some federal relief. ~ Jennifer Granholm

Monuments are the grappling-irons that bind one generation to another ... ~ Joseph Joubert

The upper echelon of adventure sport athletes are grappling with the fundamental properties of the universe: gravity, velocity and sanity. They're toying with them, cheating death, refusing to accept there might be limits to what they can accomplish. ~ Steven Kotler

So many of the dissertations and books I've read about revitalizing the American church fetishize the new life, without fully grappling with the death. ~ Lyz Lenz

Closeness,' he said, surveying the congregation. 'It's easy to be close, but almost impossible to stay close. Think about friends. Think about hobbies. Even ideas. They're close to us--sometimes so close we think they are part of us--and then, at some point, they aren't close anymore. They go away. Only one thing can keep something close over time: holding it there. Grappling with it. Wrestling it to the ground, as Jacob did with the angel, and refusing to let go. What we don't wrestle we let go of. Love isn't the absence of struggle. Love is struggle.'
That sounded like the person I wanted to be, but couldn't be. It sounded like Max. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

We are living in an era in which billions of people are grappling to promote communication, tolerance, and understanding over the more destructive forces of war, terrorism, and political chaos that have characterized the beginning of the 21st Century. ~ Aberjhani