Focal Quotes & Sayings

A leader should not be a man who arbitrarily imported his own ideas but the essential focal point for a group of people who trusted one another and worked for a common aim. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I believe tha t the two most important focal points for all of humanity in the twenty-first century are the Earth and the human brain. The Earth's health is the only standard that is all-encompassing enough to overcome the ethnic, cultural, religious, and national tensions that are rending the world asunder. Only the Earth can become the central azis around twhich world peace can be spun, for no religion is more compelling, no single nation larger, and no peoples older than the Earth herself — Ilchi Lee

It is man's intrinsic and irreducible self-responsibility to humanize himself, to exercise his entire range of rational and moral resources to raise his mode of being and seeing and acting above not just that of animals, but also above that of the majority of subhuman (never to be self-realized) humans who will never draw themselves into a self-punishing position of focal self-diagnosis and self-accountability. — Kenny Smith

The intellectualist philosopher who wants to hold words to their precise meaning, and uses them as the countless little tools of clear thinking, is bound to be surprised by the poet's daring. And yet a syncretism of sensitivity keeps words from crystallizing into perfect solids. Unexpected adjectives collect about the focal meaning of the noun. A new environment allows the word to enter not only into one's thoughts, but also into one's daydreams. Language dreams. — Gaston Bachelard

The creek that was once a fishery for Atlantic salmon, a swimming hole for kids, and a focal point of community life now runs as brown as chocolate milk. Allied Chemical and its successors deny any role in the formation of the mudboils. They claim it was an act of God. What kind of God would that be? — Robin Wall Kimmerer

The first fifteen minutes of your day should be spent planning your day. Set specific goals as to what you will accomplish. These clear goals will give you focal points on which you can govern your actions and provide your with a template you can live your day from. — Robin Sharma

In Ethiopia, food is often looked at through a strong spiritual lens, stronger than anywhere else I know. It's the focal point of weddings, births and funerals and is a daily ceremony from the preparation of the meal and the washing of hands to the sharing of meals. — Marcus Samuelsson

Our need is to see that our God today has passed through the process of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and enthronement to become the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit for us to drink. He is such a compound Spirit, and we have a spirit with which to drink of Him. In spirit we are one with Him. If we see this vision, the focal point of the divine revelation in the Bible, we shall know how to drink the Lord as the water of life. (Life-study of Exodus, pp. 515-518) — Witness Lee

The Disarmament Conference has become the focal point of a great struggle between anarchy and world order ... between those who think in terms of inevitable armed conflict and those who seek to build a universal and durable peace. — Arthur Henderson

My mother's death ... seemed so much the focal point of all personal history in our lives, it was as though time began for us when it stopped for her. Maybe this is what happens to everyone - not necessarily sudden deaths , but certain events that create distinct before and after lines, walls really, requiring a great effort to climb, discouraging doing so. — Robin Black

You went back in time," he repeated, "and you expect his cell phone to work?"
"Well, no, I just, I mean, I came back and he hasn't! Shouldn't he have?"
Morrison, very steadily, said, "Were you together?"
"No! I just said he went to fight the Morrigan!"
"I see." There was a pause. "The man is seventy-four years old, Joanie. He can take care of himself. If you were," a great and patient pause filled the line before he went on, "time traveling. If you were time traveling and got separated, then I can't think of any reason he would necessarily come back to the present at the same time you did."
"Except I was the focal point, it was my fault, it
!"
"Joanne. Siobhan. Siobhan Grainne MacNamarra Walkingstick."
I didn't think anybody had ever said my name like that before. I gulped down a hysterical sob and whispered, "Yeah?"
Morrison, with gentle emphasis, said, "I love you. Now pull yourself together and go find the bad guy," and hung up. — C.E. Murphy

Fookin' Irish, they're a race of political masochists, they love their fookin' chiefs and princes an' a strong hand belting. It's like the man said in the play, Abair and focal republic i nGaoluinn? — Gwyneth Jones

Christ was on display early in my childhood. Both my mother and father were living examples of what it meant to live for Christ and have Him be the focal point of decisions, actions, thoughts and words. It was a blessing but not entirely unexpected when very young I also came to the faith. — Aaron Kampman

Scriptures reveal that two acts occur continually before the throne of God - intercession and accusation. The conflict between these two is a focal point of the battle between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. — Rick Joyner

The tiny focal points of pain still glowed on his nerve endings, like stars coming into view one by one in a dark, bare sky. One by one - in the middle of his buttock, just below his collarbone, on the inside of his thigh - more stars came into focus, each glowing brightly at first before settling into the same intensity as the ones before, slowly forming a constellation. — L.A. Witt

The main problem that we have in Lebanon, and in the region, is we don't have a real peace process and I think this is the main focal problem that we have in the region. — Saad Hariri

It is all very well to have some internal sense of oneself as an individual, but that sense must correspond to an external reality. Part of that external reality is property. The fact that something belongs to me and not to everyone increases my sense of myself as someone in particular. For Hegel that sense of individual particularity is intrinsic to the modern moral order. Indeed "the right of the subject's particularity to find satisfaction, or
to put it differently
the right of subjective freedom, is the pivotal and focal point in the difference between antiquity and the modern age." The fact that others do not take my property
that they regard it as mine
is also a way in which they recognize me as an individual. It is precisely this recognition that the slave, the bondsman, and the serf lack. That the right to own private property, to control some corner of the world, is universal in the modern state is for Hegel part of its glory. (p. 155) — Jerry Z. Muller

It is well to have specifically holy places, and things, and days, for, without these focal points or reminders, the belief that all is holy and "big with God" will soon dwindle into a mere sentiment. But if these holy places, things, and days cease to remind us, if they obliterate our awareness that all ground is holy and every bush (could we but perceive it) a Burning Bush, then the hallows begin to do harm. — C.S. Lewis

We must clearly see that international hostile forces are intensifying the strategic plot of Westernizing and dividing China, and ideological and cultural fields are the focal areas of their long-term infiltration. — Hu Jintao

I felt extremely uncomfortable as the focal point, in the spotlight. I really like the behind the scenes role, because all my freedom is there. — Brian Eno

President Obama has made a minimum wage increase a focal point of his economic agenda. — Thomas Perez

If I look at my own recordings, I think generally there is a focal point within the song and often it's the instrumental bridge or a guitar solo where we try to do something unexpected, something beautiful or weird, or beautiful because it is weird. And of course I fail half the time, but yes that is the goal, to create even a few seconds of bliss, or sadness. The electric guitar is a great instrument for doing this because it is capable of surprising you. There are so many different sounds available. — Dean Wareham

It is sometimes desirable to distort or accentuate with lenses of various focal lengths ... Deliberate distortion may actually add to its reality. — Arthur Rothstein

Intricacy that counts is mainly intricacy at eye level, change in the rise of ground, groupings of trees, openings leading to various focal points - in short, subtle expressions of difference. The subtle differences in setting are then exaggerated by the differences in use that grow up among them. — Jane Jacobs

Revolutionary movements do not spread by contamination but by resonance. Something that is constituted here resonates with the shock wave emitted by something constituted over there. ... An insurrection is not like a plague or a forest fire - a linear process which spreads from place to place after an initial spark. It rather takes the shape of a music, whose focal points, though dispersed in time and space, succeed in imposing the rhythms of their own vibrations, always taking on more density. — The Invisible Committee

Autism is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder that is characterized by social withdrawal, by repetitive behaviors and by some kind of focal attention in its classic form. Basically, it's an inability to relate to others. — Harvey V. Fineberg

A lone peak of high point is a natural focal point in the landscape, something by which both travelers and local orient themselves. In the continuum of landscape, mountains are discontinuity
culminating in high points, natural barriers, unearthly earth. — Rebecca Solnit

I burned out my drawing hand by using it too much. The common word for it is writer's cramp. The fancy words for it are focal dystonia. The symptom in my case was a pinky finger that went spastic when I tried to draw. — Scott Adams

The Occupy movement needs an organizing principle, and - just as the Tea Party did - it needs some actual measures of success. Choose one candidate whose agenda is squarely within that of the movement and make his or her electoral success a focal point. — Eliot Spitzer

Within the scope of human cognitive experience, consciousness, when perceived, becomes awarenesss ...
Awareness is the qualia of consciousness ... Awareness is the perception of your presence in the now. Awareness in its pure state is nonlocal; there's no focal point in it. It is unbounded. Awareness, when managed and directed, becomes attention. By turning into attention, awareness becomes localized, and attains a focal point. Because of this feature, attention has the power to direct energy ... Attention has its most powerful expression in purposeful action. — Ilchi Lee

God's eternal purpose is to work Himself into us as our life so that we may take Him as our person, live Him, and express Him. This is the desire of God's heart; it is also the focal point of the Bible. In order to fulfill this purpose, God created man in His image and after His likeness. God's intention in creating man was that man would receive God into him and take Him as his life and everything to him. For this reason, after God created man, He placed him in front of the tree of life. This indicates that God wanted man to eat of this tree, which is a symbol of God Himself as life. To eat of the tree of life is to take God into us as our life and life supply. — Witness Lee

The second is the military narrative of the battles on Long Island and Manhattan, where the British army and navy delivered a series of devastating defeats to an American army of amateurs, but missed whatever chance existed to end it all. The focal point of this story is the Continental Army, and the major actors are George Washington, Nathanael Greene, and the British brothers Richard and William Howe. — Joseph J. Ellis

For black politicians, civil rights organizations and white liberals to support the racist practices of the University of Michigan amounts to no less than a gross betrayal of the civil rights principles of our historic struggle from slavery to the final guarantee of constitutional rights to all Americans. Indeed, it was practices like those of the University of Michigan, but against blacks, that were the focal point of much of the civil rights movement. — Walter E. Williams

Eden," he said, staring at their joined hands. "I built the arch to reveal my heart. Your name will forever be the focal point, uplifted by love. And if you would permit me, I'd like to build more with you - a family and a life." Levi raised his gaze to her face, surprised to see wetness glistening on her cheeks. "Eden, will you marry me? — Karen Witemeyer

I'd like to have younger people around me and that I'll be involved with them a lot more now, as opposed to me being the main focal point. — Bootsy Collins

Instead of further mucking around in the Middle East, Brzezinski is seeking to marshal all remaining US-UK resources for a final onslaught on Moscow, Beijing, and the other countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the main focal point of world resistance to London and Washington. This is Brzezinski's new Operation Barbarossa. The financiers who control Brzezinski are now fielding Obama as the plausible public face for a new era of brutal and bellicose imperialist subversion and geopolitics which will be advertised on the basis of multiculturalism and dignity through selfdetermination attained through the subversion, balkanization, partition and subdivision of existing states, instead of the narrow and venomous Islamophobia which has been the constant and strident note of the Bush-Cheney neocons. — Anonymous

But a map is not enough as a guide for action; we also need a goal that tells us where to go. Animals have no such problems. Their instincts provide them with a map as well as with goals. But lacking instinctive determination and having a brain that permits us to think of many directions in which we can go, we need an object of total devotion, a focal point for all our strivings and the basis for all our effective - not only our proclaimed - values. We need such an object of devotion in order to integrate our energies in one direction, to transcend our isolated existence, with all its doubts and insecurities, and to answer our need for a meaning of life. — Erich Fromm

When nothing becomes the vocal
Then nothing becomes the focal
And nothing's becoming at all — Kate Kaiser

Too much sparkle can detract from the focal point of the painting, so I blend some areas to tone down the look of the pastels in less important areas. — Paul Murray

I will be the focal point for however long I decide to play. Half of me likes that idea and half of me doesn't, but once the adrenaline kicks in, I'll probably really enjoy it. — Martin Gore

No subject is more touched on than love, in the human life stories as well as in the literary corpus they have left us ... No subject, either, is as discussed, as controversial, especially during the final period of human history, when the cyclothymic fluctuations concerning the belief in love became constant and dizzying. In conclusion, no subject seems to have preoccupied man as much; even money, even the satisfaction derived from combat and glory, loses by comparison, its dramatic power in human life stories. Love seems to have been, for humans of the final period, the acme and the impossible, the regret and the grace, the focal point upon which all suffering and joy could be concentrated. — Michel Houellebecq

As a lifestyle you always being the focal point is innately unhealthy. — Frank Ocean

Instead of isolating our school and our many subjects from the every day world, we intend to plant it not merely in the French capital, but in what for next summer at least will be the focal point, the capital of the entire civilized world. — Patrick Geddes

Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts are one and ideas the other. — Victor Hugo

When Christ becomes our focal point, we become everything we are meant to be-a servant to the glory of the King of all kings. — Leslie Ludy

If it has to be put in a box, it's a country record. But it's hard to do that, because it is inspired and influenced by the history of music in two different people's backgrounds. I think the focal point for many is the harmonies, and I think that is what is special and unique about it. — Jessica Harp

To get pleasure from eating, for example, you must notice that you are doing it. We found that French and American women spent about the same amount of time eating, but for Frenchwomen, eating was twice as likely to be focal as it was for American women. The Americans were far more prone to combine eating with other activities, and their pleasure from eating was correspondingly diluted. — Daniel Kahneman

We preach Christ crucified. The cross is the focal point in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. It was no afterthought or emergency measure with God. Christ was "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" [Revelation 3:8 KJV]. — Billy Graham

The absence of a focal enemy, which is what the Cold War had provided; the complexity of the developments that are occurring that mean that the world is just extremely complicated - lots of different and competing stories and strands; the continuing reality of megaterrorism; and the dysfunctionality of our politics that has neglected the foundations of the U.S. role in the world; have altogether left us somewhat confused. — Graham T. Allison

What do we mean by a public square? For starters, it is rarely square. . . . It may be a quadrangle or rectangle or circle or pretty much any shape, and it can be open or closed. It might even be a park . . . through which people pass, going from one place to another, not simply a retreat. A square is porous, balancing its porousness with some focal point, like a fountain or a reliable patch of sun with some benches that marks a break from the cars and streets and invites people to stop, look, exhale, find one another [Michael Kimmelman, "Part One: Culture: Power of the Place, Introduction"]. — Catie Marron

A prejudice may be an unreasoned judgment, he [Hibben] pointed out, but an unreasoned judgment is not necessarily an illogical judgment ... First, there are those judgments whose verification has simply dropped out of memory ... The second type of unreasoned judgments we hold is the opinions we adopt from others ... The third class of judgments in Professor Hibben's list comprises those which have subconscious origin. The material that furnishes their support does not reach the focal point of consciousness, but psychology insists upon its existence. — Richard M. Weaver

Of all the ills that our poor ... society is heir to, the focal one, it seems to me, from which so much of our uneasiness and confusion derive, is the absence of standards. — Barbara Tuchman

I find that somehow, by shifting the focus of attention, I become the very thing I look at, and experience the kind of consciousness it has; I become the inner witness of the thing. I call this capacity of entering other focal points of consciousness, love; you may give it any name you like. Love says "I am everything". Wisdom says "I am nothing". Between the two, my life flows. Since at any point of time and space I can be both the subject and the object of experience, I express it by saying that I am both, and neither, and beyond both. — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

In acoustic culture, the world, like sound, is all around you, and comes at you from all directions at once. It is multilayered and nonhierarchical; it has no center or focal point. — David Byrne

The characters are always the focal point of a book for me, whether I'm writing or reading. I may enjoy a book that has an intriguing mystery or a good plot, but to become one of my real favorites, it has to have great characters. — Candace Camp

Awareness, when managed and directed, becomes attention. By turning into attention, awareness becomes localized, and attains a focal point. Because of this feature, attention has the power to direct energy. — Ilchi Lee

But this does not take away the fact that Luke sees the frustrations women face, including the constant discipline of being quietly useful while others crowd in to take the more obviously attractive roles. Furthermore, he remembers Jesus as a teacher who was willing to recognize the value of women's contribution. Working in partnership with a man also protected the women from being bothered by other men who resented their independent activity or simply wanted to meddle. For the women of Galilee, Jesus was invaluable as a sympathetic male focal point around which their activity could be organized. The presence of such a person in their midst would have been a godsend even if the man in question had not been a miracle-worker. — Kate Cooper

But when an introvert is hanging out with a friend, sharing reflections, he is in his element. The conversation is "mind to mind" rather than "mouth to mouth." Extroverts share ideas too, but the ideas are secondary to the interaction and develop between the two people as they talk. The focal point is external. For introverts, the focal point is internal, with each participant bringing the other inside and working things out there. A good conversation leaves an introvert feeling more connected, but also personally richer. — Laurie A. Helgoe

My past has its space, its paths, its nameplaces, and its monuments. Beneath the crossed but distinct orders of succession and simultaneity, beneath the train of synchronizations added onto line by line, we find a nameless network
constellations of spatial hours, of point-events. Should we even say 'thing,' should we say 'imaginary' or 'idea,' when each thing exists beyond itself, when each fact can be a dimension, when ideas have their regions? The whole description of our landscape and the lines of our universe, and of our inner monologue, needs to be redone. Colors, sounds, and things
like Van Gogh's stars
are the focal points and radiance of being. — Maurice Merleau Ponty

When you make the present moment, instead of past and future, the focal point of your life, your ability to enjoy what you do and with it the quality of your life increases dramatically. — Eckhart Tolle

Didn't we all grow up understanding that bribes and payoffs - - by whatever name or rationale - - were bad. And that people were supposed to be the focal point of society, not money? — Ray Bourhis

When I first ran for Congress in the 1990s, my background as an openly gay Asian was one of the focal points of the campaign, and, in fact, my opponent attacked me for it. — Mark Takano

Until I began sitting, it had never occurred to me that one could learn, with practice, to distinguish between attention, or awareness, and its objects. But just this is the central and most basic technique of meditation in all the yogic traditions of India, first described some 2,500 years ago in the Upanishads. In those ancient texts, the meditator is instructed to observe literally every element of experience from afar, to simply bear witness to anything and everything that arises and passes away before the mind's eye. That's it. Just sit there, without moving, and watch, allowing the focal point of identity to shift from the — C.W. Huntington Jr.

In view of the fourteen incidents of sabotage and infiltration perpetrated in the past month alone, Israel may have no other choice but to adopt suitable countermeasures against the focal points of sabotage. Israel will continue to take action to prevent any and all attempts to perpetrate sabotage within her territory. There will be no immunity for any state which aids or abets such acts. — Levi Eshkol

And the mile once again becomes the focal point where it's always been — Ron Pickering

The Focal must hold magic, light and dark, together long enough for it to mend."
"How long does it take to mend?"
"No one's survived long enough for us to know."
I could see why people weren't rushing to volunteer. — Devon Monk

A library is a focal point, a sacred place to a community; and its sacredness is its accessibility, its publicness. It's everybody's place". — Ursula K. Le Guin

When we link our eating and our prayer and begin to see food as part of a much bigger picture, rather than the focal point of our entire lives, we reshape the way we think, the way we act, and the way we interact. — Mary DeTurris Poust

I like doing food as a focal point on my table. It is not like going out and buying flowers or candles, which are expensive. — Sandra Lee

Memories are peculiar...You think the past is there, all fixed and stable, but it is really chock full of surprises and endlessly susceptible to change...So maybe it is true that we are constantly rewriting our past; they are not something fixed and unchangeable for all time. There is a basic structure, of course, a canvas stretched across boards, which cannot be remodeled at will, but the surface of that canvas can be shaded, rearranged, touched up, continually worked on to correspond to the needs of the present. In fact, the present moment is largely the focal point from which you shape the direction of your future and juggle the implications of your past. — Elizabeth Arthur

The religious literature handed out by the earnest young missionaries in Temple Square makes no mention of the fact that Joseph Smith
still the religion's focal personage
married at least thirty-three women and probably as many as forty-eight. Nor does it mention that the youngest of these wives was just fourteen years old when Joseph explained to her that God had commanded that she marry him or face eternal damnation. — Jon Krakauer

I believe that family is closer to God's heart than anything else, the support system he has given us to build us up in faith, and to support us when we falter. If we want our family lives to conform to God's will, Jesus must be our priority, our focal point, in our home as well as in our ministries.
That doesn't mean that it's always easy to live together: home can be the hardest place to live a Christian life. That's were people see us when we're tired and our defences are down. — Angus Buchan

I'm honored that PBteen has seen me as someone who can help a broader audience understand the need to use recycled, repurposed and organic materials. Global conservation is a focal point of the capsule collection and it falls right in line with the change and direction I'm working towards, on a professional and personal basis. In collaborating with PBteen, we are creating a subtle and natural feel with this collection - something that has an authentic appeal for teens and their parents alike. — Kelly Slater

Caldwell speaks in the dry, inflectionless tone of a lecturer, but her expression hardens as she stares down at the thing that is both her nemesis and the focal point of her waking life. "If — M.R. Carey

My children are the focal point of my life. I was asking for a little more time to spend with them. — Hunter Tylo

There's a general hate in the hearts of men. You went to war, Gil, you should know that better than anyone. It's like the heat of the sun. Men like Kaad are just the focal figures, like lenses to gather the sun's rays on kindling. You can smash a lens, but that won't put out the sun. — Richard K. Morgan

If Jesus Christ was who He claimed to be, and He did die on a cross at a point of time in history, then, for all history past and all history future it is relevant because that is the very focal point for forgiveness and redemption. — Josh McDowell

Two thousand years ago, in the Middle East, an event occurred that permanently changed the world. Because of that event, history was split. Every time you write a date, you're using the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as the focal point. — Rick Warren

When one begins to purposefully perform acts of kindness, the spirit changes and soon doing good deeds becomes a focal point for our life; doing good begins to be the same as feeling good. The periods of emptiness when we search for the "meaning of it all" begin to fill with acts of kindness. — Gary Blair

There is always a journey to take and there is always a final destination to reach. There is always an aim and there is always a focal point, good or bad. Because of where we want to get to, we mind not just our actions, but the reasons behind our actions also! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Picture your worst fear or most shameful experience becoming associated with an area of your body, and then magnify this image many times over. Within the construct of body dysmorphic disorder, a body part takes on an identity of its own. The body area of concern becomes profoundly associated with the individual's sense of self: The individual with BDD misses the forest through the trees, and rather than seeing many different body parts that together shape outward appearance, the despised physical feature becomes the focal point of their existence. It can easily become the singular element within the person's life and a gauge that determines the entirety of their self-worth. — Winograd Arie M

I was glad that I could be used as a focal point to possibly bandy around some ideas, and maybe people would open their eyes to Obama's socialist ideology. However, there were so many important issues to be discussed other than the 'Joe the Plumber, Joe the Plumber.' — Joe Wurzelbacher

Science has an uncomfortable way of pushing human beings from center stage. In our prescientific stories, humans began as the focal point of Nature, living on an Earth that was the center of the universe. As the origins of the Earth and of mankind were investigated more carefully, it became clear that Nature had other interests beyond people, and the Earth was less central than previously hoped. Humankind was just one branch of the great family of life, and the Earth is a smallish planet orbiting an unexceptional sun quite far out on one arm of a run-of-the-mill spiral galaxy. — Seth Lloyd

Within the universe's intention and its unique design around relationship, we find that the focal point of the universe, the motive of the universe, is love. God created life so that we could know love. Everything God does is an expression of his love. It is neither trite nor superficial that the Scriptures summarize this in three simple words: "God is love." It is critical to understand this because, if we are to reclaim our role in the creative process and express our lives as masterful works of art, we, too, must be sure that our motivation is the expansion of love. — Erwin Raphael McManus

A system depends on the players you have. I played 4-3-3 with Ajax, 2-3-2-3 with Barcelona and a 4-4-2 with AZ. I'm flexible. The philosophy stays the same though. I don't think that you can adapt it to every possible situation. You need the right mindset, and it depends on how the players see the coach and vice versa. The coach is the focal point of the team but you need to have an open mind, and so do all the players. Everyone needs to work together to achieve a common goal. — Louis Van Gaal

The fit is my main focus, I want the fit to be great and that's the focal point for me. — Beth Ditto

There are times when a man's greatest need is to have someone to love, some focal point for his diffused emotions. Also there are times when the irritations, disappointments, and fears of life, restless as spermatozoids, must be released in hate. — Carson McCullers

Growing up in college, in high school, I was the focal point. — James Harden

We want Old Town Square to be a focal point for fun in Bandera, a place where locals can hold their special events and meetings, or just visit us for a relaxing dinner with friends on the patio. Likewise, tourists can use Old Town Square as a home base during their visit to Bandera. They can stay overnight and dine with us, but also explore all that Bandera has to offer. This was the place to come to. We want to make it that kind of place again. — Jerry Reed

Yom HaShoah is a vital day in the Jewish calendar, providing us with a focal point for our remembrance. We cannot bring the dead back to life, but we can bring their memory back to life and ensure they are not forgotten. We can undertake in our lives to do what they were so cruelly prevented from doing in theirs. — Jonathan Sacks

At home I have a copy of the April 21, 1986, issue of 'Sports Illustrated.' I'm on the cover with the blurb, 'Can Lou Do It?' I'd just arrived at Notre Dame, and with spring football underway, I was the focal point of that week's coverage. — Lou Holtz

Without the slightest doubt there is something through which material and spiritual energy hold togehter and are complementary. In the last analysis, somehow or other, there must be a single energy operating in the world. And the first idea that occurs to us is that the 'soul' must be as it were the focal point of transformation at which, from all the points of nature, the forces of bodies converge, to become interiorised and sublimated in beauty and truth. — Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

They pay no mind to the spectacle behind them. They pay no mind because to them, all things are great, all things are grand. What a life if we found the focal point everywhere, in everything, the miracle in the most mundane and the stunning in the simple. — Tyler Knott Gregson

I am a writer who works from an outline. What I generally do when I build an outline is I find focal, important scenes, and I build them in my head and I don't write them yet, but I build towards them. — Brandon Sanderson

We used to talk about wanting to get some money, but that's when hip-hop was based on your dreams and your fantasy. The whole thing now is the dreams and fantasies were achieved, and you don't want to make it the focal point. You can't keep beating that dead horse. — Sean Combs

People talk about books being an escape, but here on the tube, this one feels more like a lifeline ... The motion of the train makes her head rattle, but her eyes lock on the words the way a figure skater might choose a focal point as she spins, and just like that, she's grounded again. — Jennifer E. Smith

It wasn't chance at all, Gilly. People are yearning creatures. They imagine and strive and hope. Stories about an enchanted band of vagabonds existed before the Carnival itself. But those fairy tales become the focal point of billions of daydreams, and eventually those daydreams condensed like vapor into something real. The Carnival only exists because you want it to, you and everyone else. So why's it peculiar that, when you wanted to find it, a path came into existence too? — Kristopher Reisz

I've managed to include only enough historical detail to give the "flavor" of the time period while keeping the characters and story focal. — Julie Klassen

The more we speak of solitude, the clearer it becomes that at the bottom it is not something one can choose to take or leave. We are lonely. One can deceive oneself about it and act as if it were not so. That is all. But it is so much better to see that we are so, indeed even to presuppose it. It will make us dizzy, of course; because all the focal points on which our eyes were used to resting are taken away from us, there is nothing near us anymore, and everything distant is infinitely distant. — Rainer Maria Rilke

We must not think that religious concerns swamped all other social activities. They simply provided a focal point for them. — Alister E. McGrath