Grappling Quotes

• Strength instead of being the lusty child of passion, grows by grappling with and subduing them.

  James M. Barrie

  Strength, Children, Passion

  "The Little Minister". Book by James Matthew Barrie, p. 143, 1891.

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• So we just hope that all of these governors who are grappling will be able to provide the basic services to our citizens and not have to cut things that really are painful.

  Jennifer Granholm

  Pain, Cutting, Citizens

  "American Morning" with Paula Zahn, www.cnn.com. January 17, 2003.

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• I'm still grappling with all the things most people resolve by the time they're 35. Maybe that's why I make music that is relevant to young people. I'm emotionally stuck at the age of 13.

  Siobhan Fahey

  People, Age, Young

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• We are personalities in the making, limited, and grappling with things too high for us. Obviously we, at very best, will make many mistakes, but these mistakes need not be sins.

  E. Stanley Jones

  Mistake, Personality, Needs

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• Now a Protestant confronting a Catholic ghost is exactly Shakespeare's way of grappling with what was not simply a general social problem but one lived out in his own life.

  Stephen Greenblatt

  Catholic, Way, Ghost

  "An interview about Will in the World". "Bookworm" with Michael Silverblatt, stephengreenblatt.com. March 16, 2013.

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• 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

  Rain, Twilight, Eye

  "Locksley Hall" l. 123 (1842)

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• 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

  Fall, Wrestling, Fate

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• 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

  America, Diversity, World

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• Monuments are the grappling-irons that bind one generation to another.

  Joseph Joubert

  Iron, Chains That Bind, Memorial

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• I always try to attack. While I'm on the offensive, my opponent can think of nothing but defending.

  Marcelo Garcia

  Inspirational, Sports, Thinking

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

  Spike Lee

  Greatness, Matter, Talent

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• If a man has the right to self-ownership, to the control of his life, then in the real world he must also have the right to sustain his life by grappling with and transforming resources; he must be able to own the ground and the resources on which he stands and which he must use. In short, to sustain his human right.

  Murray Rothbard

  Real, Men, Self

  Murray Newton Rothbard (1978). “For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto”, p.52, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• 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

  Grief, Wind, Soul

  Wilfred Owen (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Wilfred Owen (Illustrated)”, p.47, Delphi Classics

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• 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

  Dream, Light, Hook

  Yusef Komunyakaa (1998). “Thieves of Paradise”, p.14, Wesleyan University Press

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• "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

  Dance, Loneliness, Moving

  Song: As Cool As I Am, Album: Mortal City

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• 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

  Love, Country, Children

  Nobel Prize for Literature Lecture, delivered 7 December 1993

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

  Robbie Williams

  Abuse, Mental Illness, Cocaine

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• 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

  Depression, Issues, Serious

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• 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

  Book, Two, People

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• 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

  Appreciation, Stars, War

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• To me it is no mystery that we can only photograph effectively what we are truly interested in or-maybe more importantly-are grappling with. Often unconsciously. Otherwise the photographs are merely about an idea or a concept-that stuff eventually falls flat for me-there must be something more, some emotional hook for it to really work for me.

  Todd Hido

  Photography, Fall, Emotional

  "A conversation with Todd Hido". Interview with Joerg Colberg, jmcolberg.com. June 18, 2007.

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• 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

  Writing, Thinking, Water

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• Sundays are terrible because it is clear that there is no one in charge of the world. And this knowledge leave you drifting around, grappling with unfulfilled expectations and vague yearnings.

  Sheila Ballantyne

  Sunday, Expectations, World

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• 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

  Real, Writing, Learning

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

  Gwen Harwood

  Fun, Philosophical, Poetry

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