Best Grappling Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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

I don't believe that the American people want us to focus on our job security. They want us to focus on their job security. I don't think they want more gridlock. I don't think they want more partisanship. I don't think they want more obstruction. They didn't send us to Washington to fight each other in some sort of political steel-cage match to see who comes out alive. That's not what they want. They sent us to Washington to work together, to get things done, and to solve the problems that they're grappling with every single day. — Barack Obama

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

Scientific greatness is less a matter of intelligence than character; if the scientist refuses to compromise or accept incomplete answers and persists in grappling the most basic and difficult questions. — Albert Einstein

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

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

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

The search for scapegoats is essentially an abnegation of responsibility: it indicates an inability to assess honestly and intelligently the true nature of the problems which lie at the root of social and economic difficulties and a lack of resolve in grappling with them. — Aung San Suu Kyi

One of the unspoken themes that I'm grappling with in Day of Honey is the relationship between violence and cosmopolitanism. It's one thing to comprehend violence as an outgrowth of ignorance, poverty, and backwardness. It's another matter entirely to confront incredible atrocities in a country with a rich civic and intellectual life. — Annia Ciezadlo

He gripped her hips, and standing up, slowly pushed volumes of silk with him. Blue fabric puffed and pillowed between them. His hand traced a slow caress the length of her from knee to hip. Edward's nostrils flared, as did his eyes, when his roving hand slipped behind her, grappling bare skin. She quivered from tantalizing male touch exploring forbidden flesh. Lydia read Edward's face, the flush of tanned skin and mouth unable to close, as knowledge seeped into his brain: she'd said her vows, eaten dinner with the utmost decorum, and chattered politely with all and sundry in this secret state of undress. Edward groaned and jammed her body hard against his. "You're naked under your skirt. — Gina Conkle

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

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

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

One of the things I really respect about Doug Moo is that he is constantly grappling with the text. Where he hears the text saying something which is not what his tradition would have said, he will go with the text. I won't always agree with his exegesis, but there is a relentless scholarly honesty about him which I really tip my hat off to. — N. T. Wright

At different points in my life, I had grappled with the idea of going into the priesthood - in high school or law school. Where it ends, I'm not quite sure. Perhaps it ends with death, grappling with one's spirituality. — James McGreevey

In many respects, theater is still grappling with problems of reality and representation that the visual art movement realized were unimportant many years ago. — Tim Crouch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

If literary fiction is reduced to only middle-class families dealing only with middle-class angst, then it's really finished as a force for grappling with the world. — J.M. Ledgard

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

The Numerati too, are grappling with towering complexity. They're looking for patterns in data that describe something almost hopelessly complex: human life and behavior. The audacity of their mission is almost maddening. They're going to figure out who we're likely to vote for, who we want to work with, perhaps even who we're best suited to love, all from the statistical patterns of data? It's the height of presumption, and it leads to humbling disappointments. Like the trees growing in the forests of Minnesota, we confound those who try to categorize us, and we do it most of the time without even trying. Life is complex. — Stephen Baker

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

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

Great Love has many attributes, and shrines For varied worshippers, but his force divine Shows most its many-named fulness in the man Whose nature multitudinously mixed
Each ardent impulse grappling with a thought
Resists all easy gladness, all content Save mystic rapture, where the questioning soul Flooded with consciousness of good that is Finds life one bounteous answer. — George Eliot

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

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